The Disciples Were With Him
Take a moment to Imagine with me the moment Jesus ascended into heaven. Now picture the gathering of followers Jesus had brought to Galilee to witness this moment. Everyone is there, chatting about what happens next, and Jesus suddenly leaves them to go back to heaven.
What do you think they were thinking? What do you think they were feeling as they were trying to digest all they had seen and experienced with their best friend and leader, Jesus?
Among a multitude of thoughts, fears, and emotions. I would imagine they were having some flashbacks to their moments with Him.
They were with Him when a paralyzed man was lowered down from a hole in the roof to be healed by Jesus. Jesus met his greatest need first, before healing him, when He said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven, now take up you mat and go." (Mark 2:3-11)
They were with Him when he held children in His lap after a very long day. (Mark 10:13-16)
They were with Him and participated when He fed 5000 men along with women and children with only 5 loaves and 2 fish. (John 6:1-14)
They experienced Jesus walking on water and then Peter joining Him. (Matthew 14:22-33)
They were in the boat with Him when He calmed the sea in the middle of a crazy storm after they woke Him up from a nap. (Mark 4:35-41)
They were with Him when He stopped an angry religious crowd from killing a woman caught in her sin and then He said, "You without sin...you throw the first stone.” (John 8:1-11)
They experienced Jesus taking the form of a bond servant and by taking each of their feet in His hands and washing them. (John 13:1-17)
They were with Him when Jesus put the man ear back on his head after Peter chopped it off. (Luke 22:49-51)
They were with Him when He was being unfairly accused, spit upon, beaten unrecognizably. They were with Him when the crown of thorns was pushed on His head. They were with Him when he carried His own cross, when the roman soldiers were hammering huge nails in His hands and feet, and they ultimately heard Him say, "Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing" and when He said to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise".
Those followers of Jesus who were left there after Jesus ascended into heaven would soon become world changers as they took the Gospel message to everyone possible. But how did they become this way? They were completely changed forever because they were with Him.
Their lives were ruined for the ordinary. Their minds, hearts, and purpose for life itself was radically changed because they had been with Jesus.
This wasn’t an accident. That was Jesus’s strategy. He lived an intentional life before His disciples. He wanted them to hear His teaching and see His interactions with the emotionally bankrupted, physically disabled, and religiously misguided. He intentionally sent them out to do the work of ministering to others as well as reteaching all they had heard from Him.
Jesus discipled His men by invited them into a relationship and then He gave them the responsibility to advance His Kingdom.
"Come follow men and I will make you fishers of men."
— Matthew 4:19
As the disciples followed, Jesus taught them and modeled to them what their lives ought to look like. Over time, they saw Jesus’s love for them, they trusted him, and because of their faith in Him, Jesus’s purpose became their purpose.
The question is, will you do the same?
Will you seek to be with Him and accept the responsibility of carrying the message of reconciliation to the lost, wandering, and disenfranchised?
Will you do what the disciples did by living the remainder of your life 100% engaged as His follower/learner and reproducer?
Will you accept what has been entrusted to you as a faithful man or woman by inviting others to follow you as you follow Jesus?
The only reason you and I are still breathing is to know, reflect, share, and reproduce Christ intentionality so that others can hear, see, do, and reteach others the message of the gospel for the purpose of helping other be reconciled back to God.
