Tag Archives: disciples

Ravenously Hungry!

Bible Study, , ,

RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY!

“Coming down off the mountain with them, He stood on a plain surrounded by disciples and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear Him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch Him — so much energy surging from Him, so many people healed!” Luke 6:17-19 (The Message).

Imagine the scene: Jesus had been up the mountain all night — praying, seeking His Father’s wisdom and guidance for the choice of disciples who would best follow Him and become like Him so that they could learn and bind His yoke on people wherever they went and do what He was doing and even more. And who did He choose? Simon Peter, James, John…and Judas Iscariot!

Now He comes down, having decided exactly who would form His band of followers, and He is met by a crowd of would-be disciples and people from the length and breadth of Judea and even farther afield -Tyre and Sidon, Gentiles from Phoenicia — Jezebel’s territory! What were they doing there? Sicknesses, diseases, demons…they were as much in need of Jesus as were His own people. They came for help and they knew where they could get it.

Jesus was electric with power. Why? Was there something about that crowd that charged Him with energy to heal and deliver? We learned earlier that the people of His own hometown of Nazareth rejected Him — even tried to kill Him. When He returned some time later, He was powerless to do miracles there because of their unbelief.

So vibrant was the atmosphere in this gathering that Luke commented on it. Power flowed from Him like electricity from a generator and just a touch brought healing and relief to their troubled minds and bodies. What was the difference between these people and the people of Nazareth? They were not concerned about His pedigree or lack of it. His presence brought help and they grabbed it with both hands.

To the villagers of Nazareth He was just a local kid, Joseph and Mary’s son, no big deal. He had grown up in front of them and they thought they knew who He was. Were they aware that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit? They thought He was Mary’s illegitimate son, a bastard who had no right to be running around teaching about God as though He were somebody special.

But to the people who were thronging Him and clamouring for His help, He was a rabbi, a prophet with unusual power and an unusual connection with God. They were not concerned about His pedigree, or who His parents were or what His father did. They were full of faith and expectation that He could and would heal them and their hopes were not disappointed.

“Then He spoke: ‘You are blessed when you’re ravenously hungry. Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal'” Luke 6:20 (The Message).

Healing and deliverance were never the be-all and end-all of Jesus’ ministry. As much as they were acts of mercy and compassion to relieve people’s suffering, they were also a foretaste of what God’s kingdom was about — the restoration of all things. It was as important to minister to their hearts as to their bodies. He wanted them to understand that God had a destiny for them much bigger than comfortable lives in the here-and-now.

If we understand this from a Hebraic mind, Jesus was not talking about food; He was talking about having an appetite for God and His truth. God’s promise has always been that He will respond to those who sincerely seek after Him. “He is the rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6. Really living was much more than not being sick or crippled or demon-possessed. It was about being God’s sons and daughters in a family that loves and takes care of one another.

You can be a part of it too! It depends on how hungry you are.

Did Jesus Make A Mistake?

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DID JESUS MAKE A MISTAKE?

“At about that same time He climbed a mountain to pray. He was there all night in prayer before God. The next day He summoned His disciples; from them He selected twelve He designated as apostles:

Simon whom He named Peter; Andrew, his brother; James; John ; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, son of Alpheus; Simon called the Zealot; Judas, son of James; Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him.” Luke 6:12-16 (The Message).

Really Jesus! After praying all night, was that the best you could do?

Not a very impressive lot, I must say. From the little we know about most of them, there was not much to commend them. Simon Peter? A big-mouthed coward; Andrew? Hardly ever opened his mouth; James and John? Violent and volcanic; Philip? Bartholomew (probably the Nathaniel of John’s gospel)? Very little said about them; Matthew, a greedy, conniving tax-collector — a sell-out to Rome; Thomas? Didn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection; James, son of Alpheus (who was Alpheus?)? Simon, called the Zealot –probably a political activist? Judas, son of James (which James?)? Know nothing about them!

And of course, bringing up the rear, Judas Iscariot! Everyone knows who he was. Why him? Did it take Jesus all night to decide to choose him?

From our point of view they all look like a bunch of losers. But Jesus saw something different in each one of them. Each one had potential — characteristics and qualities which the Holy Spirit would refine and use in future days to continue the work Jesus began and take His message to the ends of the earth with faith and courage.

Even Judas Iscariot? Even Judas Iscariot! This is where the mystery of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will meet on earth in a way that we humans will never figure out. Did Jesus give Judas the same opportunity as the others to fulfil his potential? What potential? Like every other human being, Judas had the potential for great good or great evil. It all depended on his choices.

He was exposed to the same Presence as the other disciples; he heard the same teaching; he watched Jesus do the same miracles; he preached and did miracles and cast out demons just like the others did. Nowhere in the three years he spent with Jesus was he excluded from their activities…until Jesus’ last days when Judas turned traitor.

What tipped him over the edge? We know that he loved money. John called him a thief because he pilfered the common money he was supposed to be in charge of. Why did Jesus entrust their resources to him, of all people? Was He such a bad judge of character?

Was Judas ambitious – like Brutus of “Julius Caesar” fame? Did he aspire to a high position in Jesus’ kingdom? When Jesus was slow in making His intentions know, did Judas try to force His hand? Was he ticked off with Jesus for exposing his greed when He rebuked him for his mean-spirited attitude to Mary for squandering her costly ointment on Him? Perhaps it was a combination of these things and more.

I think there were at least two reasons why Jesus chose these men. Firstly, they were some of the rejects from the Beth Talmud, “rabbi school”, and He was giving them the opportunity to become all that God created them to be…even Judas. Jesus’ choice was not ignorance or stupidity but grace! Without Him they would never amount to anything but because of Him, they would become part of the foundation of His church (Ephesians 2:20).

Secondly, He knew that the Holy Spirit would transform them into a group of powerful witnesses for Him, if they chose to follow Him. Even Judas, but Judas lost the plot. And even there Jesus knew what He was doing. It was all in God’s sovereign plan.

You can trust Him. Follow Him — He has a good plan for you!

Not Rules But Rest

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NOT RULES BUT REST

“On a certain Sabbath Jesus was walking through a field of ripe grain. His disciples were pulling off heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands to get rid of the chaff, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing that, breaking a Sabbath rule?’

“But Jesus stood up for them.’Have you never read what David and those with him did when they were hungry? How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? He also handed it out to his companions.’

“Then He said, ‘The Son of Man is no slave to the Sabbath; He’s in charge.'” Luke 6:1-5 (The Message).

Always a contentious issue — the Sabbath! This time it was the disciples who were in trouble with the Pharisees, not Jesus.

The Sabbath was God’s gracious gift to His people and a reminder that He also rested after completing His work of creation.

When He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, He reminded them of the Sabbath and built it into their marriage contract at Sinai, firstly as sign of His covenant with them, and secondly to provide the weekly cycle of six days of work to one day of rest to remind them that they were not machines but humans, and that rest was as necessary for them as their work.

So overzealous had their rabbis become over the years that they had turned the people into slaves of the Sabbath, hedging it up with so many petty rules that they had forgotten its real purpose. Instead of a day of rest, it had become a day of “don’t do this; you are not allowed to do that,” until they could hardly move for rules. And the Pharisees were the self-appointed “policemen “of their yoke!

Jesus was never a slave to their prescriptions or their opinions. His yoke was one of kindness and mercy as a mirror of the disposition of His Father. He had not come to reinforce their petty religious nonsensical traditions which had no value in either honouring the Father or helping the people to love and care for one another. He had come to show them what God is like and to teach them how God runs His realm.

They said, ‘It’s better to starve than break our rules, and our rules say that picking grain and rubbing it in your hands is reaping, and reaping is work.’ Jesus said, ‘My disciples are hungry and God is more concerned about that than about rules.’ To illustrate, He drew their attention to what their own great king, David, did when he was hungry. He did what was even more glaringly wrong in their estimation. He actually broke a law of God, not even one of theirs, and nothing happened to him.

So then, what is the Sabbath and how does it apply to us now? Sabbath has significance in two ways — a creation ordinance of God to provide us with a regular day of rest once a week, and a prophetic picture of the rest from our religious “labour” that God has provided. Jesus invites us into a permanent rest from trying to gain access to God by our own futile efforts.

No amount of trying or “doing” will ever be enough, but Jesus did it for us by getting rid of our sin and giving us access to the Father as His sons and daughters. Sabbath is no longer a rigid, religious, one-day-a-week rest, but a permanent and perpetual rest of faith in Christ that sets us free from observing laws in order to gain God’s favour.

We are now God’s sons and daughters, no longer lost and in a far country. We have come home to Father’s house and can lively freely with Him as His children, not as slaves.

Have you come home to His rest?

 

 

Networking With God

Christian Life, , ,

NETWORKING WITH GOD

He told them: “Take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic…” Luke 9:3

Why did Jesus instruct His disciples not to take extra clothes, provisions or money with them when He sent them out to preach? Was it, since they were on kingdom business, that the King would take responsibility to care for their physical needs – in fulfilment of His promise in Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well”?

But God always comes to us through human agents. People do the caring and providing using the resources God provides for them through other people, and so on.

Why not carry their own provisions and money instead of relying on their hosts to provide for them? Was it because they could travel faster and more comfortably unencumbered? But, more than that, there is something about sowing into someone else’s ministry that mysteriously connects us with that person so that their anointing is imparted to us. It becomes a partnership, in a sense, where the giver shares in the harvest of the sower.

Is it about connectedness? Since we are reflections of God’s image, we express our oneness with God and with each other by partnering with those who go, by giving and sharing our resources to make their going possible.

If people refuse to connect by not partnering with those who come to them, they become disconnected from the blessing and anointing of the messengers of the good news. They disqualify themselves from receiving the blessing of Jesus, the Rabbi, in whose dust we walk. By shaking the dust of our feet off that household, are we not saying, “You may have refused to receive the message of the Rabbi, but the door is always open, and so I leave you with my Rabbi’s blessing in the hopes that you will recognise and receive its value and open your heart to receive His blessing”?

It was in this spirit of generosity, both giving and receiving, that the disciples went, and in the going, sowed seeds of truth and left the blessing of their Rabbi wherever they went. They created a network of partners who shared as they listened and received as they gave, so that the disciples’ message blanketed the region where they had been, extending and increasing the influence of their Rabbi’s yoke wherever they went. This is the way the gospel not only changes the lives of individuals but, by networking, it also blankets whole geographical areas with the message and power of God’s grace and weakens the hold of demonic powers over regions.

Anchored In Truth

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ANCHORED IN TRUTH

“After proclaiming the Message in Derbe and establishing a strong core of disciples, they retraced their steps to Lystra, then Iconium, then Antioch, putting muscle and sinew into the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not to quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy. ‘Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.'” Acts 14:21-22 (The Message).

How would you tackle the mammoth task of penetrating a completely pagan society with a message that made no sense and was being actively opposed by unruly mobs of fanatically religious Jews who were out to kill you? Call it a day and go home, probably!

What guarantee did Paul and Barnabas have that the converts would not quit the moment their backs were turned? Why should these people stick with believing a story about a Jew who said and did some extraordinary things, was executed as a criminal and then came back to life again? What proof did they have that this was all true?

Unlike religions, which are man-made belief systems, Paul and Barnabas were in partnership with God Himself. When people received the Message, something supernatural happened: their unresponsive spirits were made alive to God; their minds were enlightened by the truth and they were joined to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. God Himself took up residence in their spirits and they were in direct communication with Him.

They may not have had the written Word of God in their hands as we have today, but they had the Living Word in their hearts. Paul and Barnabas had a limitless confidence in the power of God to sustain every believer and keep them following the Master. It was their task to teach, exhort and encourage them to persevere, and those who were truly made new by God’s Spirit stuck with their new faith and passed it on to those around them.

Jesus gave His disciples the assurance that He would build His church. Their commission was to make disciples, not converts, by passing on everything they had learned from Jesus. For Paul and Barnabas to evangelise was only half the task. It was imperative that they thoroughly ground their converts in God’s Word — the Law and the Prophets — to ensure that their faith had a firm foundation in truth, not fantasy.

Paul and Barnabas did their best to imprint that Word into the new disciples and, to their delight, as they retraced their steps from town to town, they found people who were committed to the Faith they had received, regardless of the price they had to pay. They learned that the grace of God is free but it is not cheap. They had received the free gift of eternal life but with it came the refining process of hardship and trouble which would prepare them for lives that bore witness to the power of Jesus at work in them.

Those of us who have a shepherding role to play in the church have an example to follow in these two stalwart missionaries who never gave up, no matter how tough the way, and who faithfully taught the Word of God to the converts until they became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, committed to Him as their Rabbi to stick with Him, learn from Him and imitate Him so that others, in turn, would also follow.

Our role is not to propagate a religion but to invite people to become followers of Jesus, to be united to Him and to navigate this life with Him as He takes us to the Father.