pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: disciple


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Go and Do Likewise

Reading: John 12: 1-11

Our Holy Week readings begin with Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume.  It is something she bought and has kept for just this occasion.  Mary anoints His feet as a beginning step of preparation for His burial.  While this surface fact is true, we must look deeper as well because Mary is a study in faith, a great example to all who call on the name of Jesus.

This story is not our first or last encounter with Mary.  In Luke 10 we see Mary as obedient follower.  As sister Martha works to make all the preparations, Mary simply sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him.  Jesus indicates that Mary has chosen wisely.  Unspoken is the warning not to allow business to get in the way of following.  The lesson here from Mary is to place His Word as supreme in our lives.

We also encounter Mary in the story of the resurrection of her brother Lazarus.  In John 10 it was Mary who first sent for Jesus because her brother was sick.  As  news of Jesus approaching their town comes to the grieving home, Mary does not rush out to meet Jesus.  She waits until He calls for her.  Then she goes without delay and confesses her faith in Jesus’ power, even over death.  This is a confession we too must make if we are to surrender our lives to His will.

Lastly, the anointing.  There is of course the sacrifice of the expensive perfume.  But for many of us, like Mary we too can ‘afford’ to give of our resources.  But to go beyond is the challenge for many of us.  To allow the Spirit to lead and to be willing to see God’s vision of what lies just ahead can be difficult.  Here Mary does both.  She goes the extra step and uses her hair to wash His feet.  She allows the Spirit to lead her into this act of service.  In the next chapter we see Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  He instructs them to follow His (and Mary’s) example, to be willing to serve one another.  Led by the same Spirit, may we be willing to go and do likewise.


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The Journey

God’s promises to Zion are promises to us too.  In the broad sense, Zion is the place where God and mankind connect.  People of all walks of life, from a wide variety of circumstances and situations, and from all over the world come and connect to God.  Each of us are such people.  We are drawn by the promises of freedom from sin and death, of abundant life in the here and now, and of eternal life in the time to come.  God’s promises bring love, hope, joy, and peace.

In order to live in and enjoy all of God’s promises, we must go on and be on a journey.  Our journey begins with another’s faith.  We come to know God through our parents or through a friend as we see faith in them.  Our desire to “have” what they have leads us into our own personal relationship as we choose to declare Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Through our own servanthood and discipleship we begin to live into God’s promises.  We see the world from a new perspective.  As we continue to walk in this new relationship we experience the constant renewal of our mind and heart as we grow closer and closer to Him.

We cannot stop walking though.  Some do.  Some say they have accepted Christ and act as if that is the end point.  It is not.  Our journey of faith continues until the day we die.  Every day we are  called to know Him more and to fall deeper and deeper in love with Him.  Our role also expands.  We add witness to servant and disciple.  It is the “go” part of the great commission.  We all need to become His light and love in the world so that others might see our life in Christ and say as we once said: I want some of that.  May our light and love draw others to His light and love.

Scripture reference: Isaiah 62: 1-5


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Disciple: Love

The crowds wanted Jesus to be an earthly King.  The disciples thought they wanted Jesus to be an earthly King.  Those in authority feared Jesus would become an earthly King.  Sometimes I wish Jesus were an earthly King.  But He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Maybe a better way to look at it is His kingdom is IN the world but not OF this world.  The new command He gave was to love one another.  He went on to explain that people would identify His disciples, those in His ‘army’, by the way they radically loved others.  We are commanded to love one another in this world.  But the love is not earthly love.  It is a love that come from Jesus.  He first loved us and calls us to go out and share His love with others.

Jesus’ kingdom is based on His love with a good dose of forgiveness and reconciliation thrown in.  Jesus knew the normal world operated on violence, coercion, force, power, might.  So in living in this world, He knew His disciples would have to back that love up with forgiveness and reconciliation.  A Christian’s mode of operation and response to the world is based on love.  Love can overcome all things, including violence, coercion, …

God invites us to live from His kingdom’s view.  He commands us to love one another.  And as a ‘reward’ He says the world will know we are Christians by our love.  It is an identifier.  It is a choice that makes some wonder what we’ve got, what makes us so different from the world.  May we make many curious today!

Scripture reference: John 18: 33-37


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Following Along

In John 12 Jesus parallels our faith with that of a seed.  If a single seed remains sitting on the counter or in the package, then that is all it is.  In a similar way, if we just believe in God then that is all our faith is: just belief.

When the seed is placed in the soil though, it can produce much more.  But in order to produce a crop, the seed itself must die and grow into a plant.  The old is gone and the new goes on to produce a crop.  In a similar way, our old self must be given up so that our new self can grow to live our life for Christ instead of for self.

If we are willing to set aside self and to live for and with Christ, we too can bear much ‘fruit.’  And here too Jesus gives insight.  He tells the disciples and us that whoever serves Him, must follow Him.  Whoever follows must go where He goes.

Here Jesus is calling us past belief.  He is calling us to action: follow, serve, go.  In order to bear fruit in our lives, it requires us to put God and others ahead of ourselves.  This means we cannot ask “Go where?” or “Now?” or “With whom?”  Jesus ministered to anyone, anywhere, anytime.  If we are to follow, we must do the same.

Scripture reference: John 12: 20-26


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Come and See

Our world is full of good people, good places, good institutions and organizations.  We all know many of each of these.  But if someone says there is a good new restaurant in town, we only partially believe it.  If they describe their wonderful experience and the food, then our belief increases some.  Yet it is only after we have gone there ourselves that we really believe what we were told in the first place.

All people, places, … want to have a good reputation.  This includes churches.  When a church says they love God and neighbor, preaches from the Bible, and so on it must be found to be true when one visits the church.  If a church says they love their neighbor, then there must be evidence of that.  In many ways, we need proof to believe something.

When Jesus called Philip, he simply said, “Follow me.”  Something inside Philip knew to go and follow this man.  He sensed it.  sometimes we have the same prod of the Holy Spirit – we just know to act.  But when Philip tried to get his brother Nathanael to folow Jesus, he was skeptical.  Philip’s repsonse was simply, “Come and see.”  The long version is: come and spend time with Jesus and you will see that He is the Messiah.  As Jesus says to each of us today “Come and see”, how will you do just that?  Blessings on you rjourney!

Scripture reference: John 1: 43-46


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All the Difference

When Jesus asks the disciples who people say He is, do you think He really wants to know?  Or is He just leading up to the second question?  I think He really wants to know who the disciples think He is.  I think this because it is the disciples who will change the world.  It is the ones who know him best that will have the greatest impact.

This begs the question of us: do we know Jesus?  Do we know him well enough that we could finish a sentence He started?  Does He know us well enough that He could do the same?  Jesus wants to go beyond prophet, priest, and king to be or best friend. He wants us to be absolutely in love with Him.

2000 years later, the same question is ours: “who do you say that I am”?  And 2000 years later, our role is the same as the original disciples was: to go out and change the world, to go out and build the kingdom here on earth.  How we respond to the question and how we act upon that answer will make all the difference in the world.

Scripture reference: Matthew 16: 13-20


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With Us Always

In Matthew 28, Jesus gives his last instructions: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”.  Jesus goes on to promise that He will be with us always, to the end of the age.

We are invited to baptize in order to bring all aspects of God into the new believer’s life.  God empowers, Jesus redeems, and the Holy Spirit sustains.  Just as a new believer needs all three, we too need all three to do our ‘work’ in the world.  No one can do it alone.  And we must not forget the last part of Jesus’ command: teach them to obey all of Jesus’ commands.  We are not called to simply bring people to Christ, but to also teach them about being like Christ in their world.  We too often forget the second half of Jesus’s great commission.

To make disciples and to teach them we must allow ourselves to be vessels of God’s redeeming love.  But if all we do is give, soon our well will run dry.  We too must allow ourselves to be poured into and filled by God’s love.  Once we ourselves are filled them we can go forth to disciple and teach.  Jesus promises to be with is always, to the end of the age.  This promise gives us the confidence to go forth in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  May all three fill us up and send us out!!


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To the End of the Age

Jesus suffered a painful death as an act of obedience to God and out of love for us.  A pure and holy man went to the cross not only to suffer nd die but also to take upon Himself the sins of us all.  It is through this gift that we are able to find salvation for our souls.

After He died, Jesus was resurrected and sits at God’s right hand.  He sits to judge the living and the dead.  Peter tells us that after dying Jesus went and “preached to the spirits in prison”, those dead in their sins since the time of Noah.  Jesus wants us all to be saved.  Jesus judges us in accordance with how we live our lives as a follower or disciples of Christ.  Followers emulate the ways of the one they follow.  Disciples study one so that they can be like the one they study.

Our baptism was the beginning of our commitment to live as a follower or disciple of Jesus Christ.  Baptism is symbolic of the cleansing waters of the flood, when God washed clean the earth, removing man and his sin from the world.  Baptism is a promise to God to live with a purity of conscious.  At times we have suffering.  At times we have joy.  Most of the time we live between these two.  If we live in all these states as a faithful and obedient follower and disciple of Christ, our destiny is the same as Christ’s destiny.  Eternity awaits the faithful and obedient.  But in our day to day, we are called to take up the cross of Christ, to live for Him. For strength, remember the promise found in Matthew 28:20 – “I am always with you, even to the end of the age.”