Apostles sent to preach
Key Verses: 1, 7-8, 9, 14, 16, 30, 37, 38
Jesus defines the scope of ministry for His people. Not everyone will have the same scope. My wife works with the homeless. I work with the military. My son in law works with Middle School students. My son works in soles, athletic type. My daughter works with theater types, and my daughter in law right now cares for a five month old. Each of us has our own slice of the ministry pie. Our hearts draw us toward different populations of needy people. Uganda, Romania, Iraq, India, Florida, China.
Jesus sends out His twelve with specific instructions. He doesn’t send them to do whatever they feel like doing. He says to do specific things a specific way. He stretches their faith. Anytime God calls us to a task He will define the task and it will be greater than our capacity to accomplish. That way we have to rely on Him, and He gets the glory when it happens. He helps us with our pride.
The life of these disciples will not be easy. Persecution awaits them. Hardship and insult are just around the corner, but this does not mean God has forgotten them. God knows every detail of our lives. We need to have our priorities correct. He must be first and foremost in our lives, our number one priority. Even our family needs to take second place. This does not mean we lock ourselves in our prayer room and neglect our family, but that our love for family flows out of our love of God.
Our identification with Jesus must be complete. People need to be able to look at our lives and know that Jesus has changed us, that it is He who has made the difference. The cross we bear is not a wooden one with a wheel on the end, carried as a testimony to Jesus’ sacrifice. Our cross means that, just like Jesus, we have died to our own selfish desires and serve Him and others.
The Arnold Journey 