Discipleship II

Luke 8:1-49

The disciples took more than three years to become capable of exercising the rule of grace in God’s Kingdom.They lived with Christ, heard, saw, and felt the divine power of grace as it worked among the people of Israel. The power and the exercise of the rule of grace (the Word), Jesus describes it as indeed it would affect every individual life, so that all would become one body of Christ with the same character/ behaviour.

1. Hearing the Word
2. Doing the Word
3. The New Life – Eternal life.

1) Hearing the Word

The Word is God’s voice which is heard and awakens a new life of trust in Christ who stands before us now in the Word. The Word contains God’s mysteries which he freely gives to all believers as blessings to enable them in their sojourn (temporary stay) in this earthly world.

The word heard from Jesus was by far of greater impact and revolutionary compared to the Jewish teaching of keeping the law of Sabbath which changed nothing. To this day, many still hang on to the Jewish teachings of the law devoted to the temporary stay in this world with no divine power to save.

Among the blessings of God is the Word (Seed), i.e. the Law by which God reveals the conscience of man as being bad soil for having rejected his Divine power. Jesus describe the conscience of man as trodden paths, rocky places, and briar patches all of which reveal God’s condemnatory verdict of death, that is already passed on to all humanity in the world because of the sin of rejection of God.

The content of the Word is Jesus Christ; consisting of blessings convicting the soul  of sin and death; thus unsettling the soul, in order to turn to Christ who alone has all power needed in this world to overcome the devil. Christ’s ability to remove this condition of blindness and deadness in repentance transforms sinners into disciples, who are then filled with heavenly blessings and certainty of life. A life stable even amidst the storms of life;  it is the end of weeping. The blessings open the eyes of the blind. It is a great joy when you look forward to the coming heavenly world; all of which is termed hearing.

It is the hearing which turns bad soil into good soil. The more the heart opens to the word, the better the soil becomes. In other words, the more enlightened and the more riches, the more good fruit is produced. But most disappointing is that many reject the Word thereby remaining the bad soil, as rocky trodden paths, rocky places, and briar patches, hence God’s condemnatory verdict and all seed which falls on such soil dies.

What is most worrying is stated at the very beginning of the chapter.

Out of all this travel from city to city, only three women heard the word; meaning they felt their guilt of sinfulness. Jesus even specifically mentioned their names. Only these three became the good soil. This means there were no others. The rest throughout his travels, remained trodden paths, rocky places and briar paths, bad soil. Implication is that few are saved.

Hearing the Word is noticeably the light of the body which cannot be hidden, and many can see this light from far. How can this be? The word produces unity, it unifies into good soil with specific fruit. It is amazing that these three women who heard, left all their relatives and life style and followed Christ.

The Word unifies all men into Disciples of Christ.

The unity it produces unifies and makes disciples one with Christ. All other earthly relations are combined into one spiritual tie that binds all disciples to him as brethren. This discipleship is the greatest source of joy and has the greatest rewards here in our sojourn.

It abandons all earthly lies. (Matthew 10:37). The more hearing, the more blessings one receives. We do not hear anything more about seed which fell on drier places etc.

2) Doing the Word (The Trust)

The act of will, trusting, is the doing of the Word, an act of obedience required in the life of a disciple. No law can produce this act of will but Christ (the Word) alone can because of his divine power which is beyond human understanding. As an example, is the life planted in a human body, is well beyond man’s thoughts and understanding.

Providence provided an occasion to demonstrate God’s divine power which enabled the disciples’ ability to put all their trust In Jesus.

Jesus was asleep in Peter’s boat when a sudden tempest befell them. Even though they were seasoned sailors who had encountered many storms before now, they were suddenly at the end of their road. Filled with fear, they saw death in the pounding waves. This situation revealed their littleness of faith, their trust had not developed, there was little if any.

The training had not yet produced the necessary results of the confidence which comes forth with knowledge.

Even with many of us believers, the many storms of life’s experience, fear, desperation and the demands of life, always put us in panic. It means our knowledge of God is lacking.

• Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind and the raging sea of the waters, was calm in a moment.
• He also commanded the unclean spirit to come out of a man.

Here is Jesus’ divine power which should compel his disciples to put all their trust in him. He that stills the winds and the waves of the sea is in charge of life.

The man out of the city, filled with many devils for a long time, wore no clothes, neither abode in any house but in tombs. His name was Legion.With this Jesus provided more proof. Jesus commanded them (the demons) to leave the man and compelled them to enter the swine feeding on the mountain. The herd ran violently down the steep hill into the lake and was drowned. This is how he removes all our sin.

They that fed the swine and the owners of the swine including the multitude of the country of the Gadarenes; instead of recognizing the divine power behind the two acts; the changed condition of the man and act of the swine; asked Jesus to depart from them, they missed the golden day of salvation.

Interestingly Jesus instructed the man (legion) to return to his home and to remain as an example of the great things God has done. The same power stands before his disciples today, so that our trust and confidence may remain firm.

3) The Word is Life

The fruit of the word is the new life in Jesus Christ. The New Life is invisible to the naked eye except when one is dead, the life having gone out of him.

It is not so important to understand what really life is, but who really gives it as a gift, and turns it especially into the good soil.

What humanity is ignorant about is the effect of the good heart (soil) or discipleship. A completely new life is planted.

A woman with a blood issue for 12 years had a big threat to her entire life, and no cure could be found during all those years.As the good soil of Abraham’s daughter, the woman’s condition drew her to Jesus Christ. When she heard that Jesus was around, she went behind him and touched the border of his garment, demonstrating her unworthiness with all her sins.

“Somebody hath touched me”, Jesus said. The woman came trembling; and falling down before him, told him all about herself.

Jesus disclosed her before all the people as a demonstration of what she had received. She was healed immediately; she was given a new life, all sins removed. And he said unto her, “Daughter (meaning the true faith of Abraham) be of good comfort; thy faith (good soil) hath made the whole; go in peace.”

A condition of peace, where not only peace (righteousness) has been restored in the heart, but also made whole; body and soul; sin and eternal death removed. A condition unspeakable, beyond any ordinary feeling of human beings.Jesus was not to stop at the restoration of body and soul only; but also provided proof of the statement of his divine power in restoring her life.

Finally, he came to the house of Jairus and in this case a few of his disciples (good soil) were to be the witness of the divine power. He included Peter, James, and John. The father and the mother of the maiden were to be witnesses.And while they all wept, he said to them “Weep not; she is not dead but sleepeth”,this is where we get our strength even in death. We shall not die but shall go into sleep and on the final day rise again.

Jesus will say to all his disciples “arise” and our spirits will come again, and we shall arise, straight away as the maiden was woken up from the sleep of physical death.