Ch 8 of Lukes gospel is clearly a Church chapter and has within it the structure for ministry and demonstration of its application, a demonically bound man being delivered and a women with an issue of blood touching Jesus for her healing and fruitfulness.
Both individuals responded to the Word of God and were able to be put on lamp stands, so that all around could see the good ground that the Word of God had produced and manifested. They were lights unto the true grace of God.
Chapter 9 starts with the 12 disciples being sent out, to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.
In chapter 8 he has talked of the parable of the sower and the cares of life and so he sends out his 12 disciples to experience explicit trust in the Word of their calling and sending. They become conduits of the word of others healing.
Through the application of what Jesus had demonstrated being repeated by his students/disciples, the teacher and his students were being joined together in unity. The students were becoming as their teacher (Luke Ch 6 v40).
This is glorious, and this is spiritually liberating. GOD has not called us to a spiritual walk of isolation and internal strife. No he has called us into the fellowship, so that even if their be suffering further down the road, communion with him is assured.
The 12 disciples experienced the sovereignty of God at work through their lives healing others around them, as they were in obedience to the Word of God and their sending.
This opens to are understanding a great expanse, it reveals that life, that life itself is orchestrated by order, the divine order. That spiritual principles govern are whole universe. That the edge of his garment matters every bit as much as the whole.
It also brings a perfect harmony between objective and subjective truth.
Thanks be to God.
Luke Ch 9 v49, gives context to the universality of objective truth. We are able to apply the principles of the Word of God and it will lead to others benefiting.
However, while embracing Gods Word has boundless liberty, if we attempt to move beyond relationship with God in its ownership then we are not in a subjective experience that is underpinned by absolute truth.
Perfect liberty when are hearts are in obedience. But if are heart motions and movements are not coming from truly understanding Gods Word and it’s application towards others then we will not be truly fruitful, despite who or how many may gravitate towards us. Luke Ch 9 v49 others were being set free.
A prosperity gospel, may lay claim to Luke Ch 6 v38, but if the speaker and the listener desire financial prosperity more than forgiving those who sin against us and have more care about the riches of life than taking nothing for ones journey, then the ministry is not going to produce disciples who genuinely know their maker.
Therefore, Luke Ch 9 is going deeper again than 8, as it is laying a foundation of unity with the Word and the disciples lives and making that unity the very ground upon which they are to go forth and minister.
Now Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen.
Luke Ch 9 v10 told them all they had done.
I don’t think the text here is highlighting the doctrinal error here in the apostles thinking. I think it is simply a true statement, and Jesus delighted in it.
Yet, the apostles inability to cope with the crowd and their lack of understanding as to the fact that it had been GOD that had done all through them. Had they a better understating of this they may have understood that God could provide even in a desolate place.
God feeds the five thousand, we are informed with a boys packed lunch. God multiplied the personal provisions of one boy because he was hearing the word of God correctly, for others benefit, and moved to meet the need.
Oh what a God we serve! An incredible liberty, the sovereignty of God the universal principles of Spiritual life are revealed to his 12 apostles through a boys packed lunch, and the multitude are fed. God didn’t feed the multitude through the 12 disciples following their teacher in prayer! Their was no strife or energy or religious zeal that produced the answer for the multitude from within themselves. God did it all through one within the crowd who had all the resources that God required to double down the message of glorious liberty. The apostles learned that the provisions of God could come through the people they have been commanded to feed.
This is such a beautiful demonstration of the objective and subjective singing together with Joy. The apostles had a yoke broken from them this day by the Word that brings life, by the Word that is plural – God speaks and we see: Let there be light and there was light.
Herod heard and then sought to see! But was his heart seeking to be taught by the Word of God born a King in the stable of Bethlehem.
Jesus demonstrated the truth through one who was little and had little Luke Ch 8 v18, and the apostles were involved in bringing it to their teacher and then distributing it to the multitude.
Doesn’t this practical demonstration speak into all GOD had done though their sending out. And their were 12 baskets full of broken bread pieces. They did not yet understand that brokenness in themselves and all they ‘couldn’t do’ when brought to their teacher could be transformed to feed a multitude. But alas their teacher had to go to a Cross for them to fully understand the parable of the shared broken bread, that fills empty baskets. 120 going out to the multitude with the communion bead and wine shared with man liberally from within the Godhead fellowship sweet & divine.
After this as Jesus was praying alone, the disciples were with him.
And he asked them? Who do the crowds say that I am?
And they replied the very same as Herod, these statements were universally being discussed.
This is such a pivotal moment, the 12 have especially been called to follow him for this one singular purpose, that they may grasp this central truth.
It also conveys the perfect harmony between his deity and his humanity. Their is no schism in the identity of Christ in either his divinity or his humanity. Now that is probing into mystery, but it is going deeper again into the source of their future ministry, in that the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, in that Christ redeemed and restore man to his original ordination of having dominion and uniquely representing God through reproducing according to the nature of God, the image of God.
The crowd and the apostles where all common mankind, and Jesus brought grace into man for all men, not sin and death.
It mattered to Jesus this question. It mattered for a whole range of reasons but not least because human longings for loyalty, faithfulness for the original blueprint of Family: It not being Good that man should dwell alone. Jesus was praying alone, the disciples were with him.
Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God’. Jesus instantly recognized that Peter had not been given a revelation of all Peter had done, that flesh and blood had not fed the multitude, but that this was the Father imparting sight into Peters heart, the original blessing of receiving the true words of God: All that I have is thine, God having not withheld his only beloved Son.
You give them to eat! Peter did on the day of Pentecost when he lifted up his voice, a broken and little apostle filled and made mighty through the blood of the Lamb.
Jesus goes immediately from the revelation of who he is to the Cross.
The Cross of Jesus reveals the Christ of God.
The Cross is irrevocably.
The Cross is a Spiritual principle that governs are whole universe.
The embracing of the Cross is where we find the true fellowship, and this is the teaching in which we know that we shall rise again.
The emphasis is on fellowship, it is not a religious cord for are back. It is through his Cross that we are drawn to know the mystery of his love more deeply. We are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ as the whole world offers nothing in comparison to his sacrificial death for all my trespasses and sins.
The thief upon the cross, did not want to gain out of the Cross, he did not want to return to his old way of life, taking what didn’t belong to himself. But he made a request of the Christ, that he would remember him in his Kingdom! Jesus knew that his death was not in vain, someone had heard and seen their own salvation through his Cross and eternal life in paradise was his gain.
Oh the depths of the mystery, a thief who took that which didn’t belong to himself, asks and obtains eternal life in paradise! Not just a boys packed lunch from the crowd, does God use, but the betrayal of his Son, God uses this as the Spiritual principle that governs are whole universe.
What a man sows he shall also reap.
Repentance unto life or outer darkness.
Note
This morning the speaker spoke on 1 Samuel Ch 17 and started talking about the House of Representatives, and went on to reveal that David was a type of Christ who was a representative who won the battle on behalf of all the others.
The preacher made a statement ‘that sin could be defeated by the sacrifice of ANOTHER!
The very nature of are salvation is a characteristic that is the nature of God, and why the truth shall always be that which sets man free.
Gen Ch 1 v1-3. Gods Word is objective and plural.
Pondering depths! Does it get deeper than Gen 1 v2 &3. The unity is through / procured through Gods first spoken word.
Yesterday, I went for a walk and came across a river and being very hot in this country at this moment I went for a swim – so refreshing.
I started listening to a sermon on Gods Word for Gods Glory, it was a blessing as I had known that it was there but chose to listen to it while descending a large hill towards the river. It may not have had the might of the Colorado, but it was blessing the sync of it.
While enjoying the refreshment of the river I was looking up at the trees, and my attention saw an element of fractals in nature. Which I hope was a follow on from an adventure of a fox, in are garden.
The word was good last night, as ever :).
eternalrays 