Author: Brian Burdett

“And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” – Acts 14:23

Paul and Barnabas were wrapping up their missionary trip by revisiting the towns where they’d started new churches. After a bit of time worshiping and following Jesus together, leaders had begun to emerge within each church. As Paul and Barnabas returned, those leaders were recognized and appointed to shepherd the young churches. The remarkable thing is that every member in those churches, including the leaders, were new Christians. More remarkable is what Paul and Barnabas did…

They “committed them to the Lord”. Rather than panic over the immaturity of the churches and their leaders and conclude they needed to stay and mentor them for years, Paul and Barnabas turned them over to God the Father, Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit within them. It requires enormous faith to turn something as precious as a brand new church led by spiritually immature leaders over to the Lord. Honestly, though Who is better equipped to guide and guard those churches?

Today, in the West, we place entirely too much faith in our ability to plan, organize, and teach people and churches obedience and spiritual success. We trust in humans more than we trust the Spirit of the Living God. We would never say that, but our actions make clear that we believe it. In our pride, we would rather commit spiritual enterprises to seasoned human leaders than to the Lord. We have this all wrong!!!

If we’re going to re-reach the West with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we must regain our faith and trust in the Lord as the Lord. We must be willing to take risks and do everything we can to reach and prepare new believers to grow in Christ. Then we must let them grow in Christ and trust in His Lordship. We must be willing to multiply churches and leaders, committing them to the Lord rather than to the human processes that haven’t served us well in recent decades. Who or what is the Lord asking you to commit to Him?

“And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’” – Matthew 9:11-12

The religious leaders of His day were mystified and concerned that Jesus would share table fellowship with hardened sinners and traitors to God’s people. How could Jesus be holy and wise if He spent time with people so far from God???

Jesus makes clear that those people were His primary mission. Jesus came to reach those farthest from God to invite them into His Kingdom. Yes, Jesus preached to and taught those who thought they were spiritually mature and holy. However, He knew their pride and self-righteousness would always be an obstacle to their receiving God’s gift of grace. Blind to their problems, they saw no need for a solution. Therefore, Jesus concentrated His energy and attention on those farthest from God and most deeply aware of their guilt, sin, and shame.

Do you? As a follower of Jesus, are you more concerned with and devote more time and energy to those already in God’s Kingdom or those farthest from it? Jesus made His priorities clear throughout Scripture, yet most Christians today reverse those. We generally prefer investing our time, energy, and resources into those most like us and avoid engaging with those least like us. Yet they are who Jesus would invest in and who He’s calling each of us to invest in.

Consider how you invest your life for Jesus. Are you investing in those with little to no need of a physician or in those who are profoundly spiritually sick?

“Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.” – Acts 11:19-20

Praise God for the “some of them” who talked to “outsiders” about Jesus! Most of us are in the Kingdom today because of their efforts two thousand years ago. When the church scattered from Jerusalem in fear over persecution, most folks kept telling people who looked and sounded like them about Jesus. However, a handful decided to tell outsiders. They told people who spoke Greek and worshiped false gods. They told people living in a depraved and sinful culture very different from their own (but very much like ours). Their words changed the world!!!

At Antioch, Christianity stopped being a movement inside Judaism into becoming what Jesus had long before commanded His followers to make it – a global movement to bring people from every ethnic group, nationality, and language into reconciled relationship with God the Father through faith in Jesus the Son. This finally began to happen because some followers of Jesus started telling those who were “different” about Him.

We must do the same in our post-modern, post-Christian, post-Covid world. We must be willing to tell people of different faiths and different cultures about Lord Jesus, even though our culture tells us we shouldn’t. Jesus is THE way, THE truth, and THE life. NOBODY comes to the Father except through Him. All around you are people seeking the spiritual, desperate for the eternal, and wanting to know God. They just don’t know how unless you tell them!

If we love our neighbors, we must tell them about Jesus, especially if they look, sound, and act very different from us. Whether they’re from another country, another faith, or another way of living life, they need to hear about Jesus. More and more people in our communities have never heard about a God Who loves them so much He sent His Son to die for them on a cross. Most haven’t realized that the eternal meaning and purpose they’re starving for isn’t going to be found in themselves or the exciting opportunities of modern culture but in a person. Lord Jesus. Stop worrying about what you imagine people might know or think about Jesus. Tell them about the Jesus Who died for them and the life of transformed obedience to Him that awaits everyone who accepts God’s gracious invitation to eternal life in Christ!

“Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’” – Matthew 8:21-22

To our western mind, these words of Jesus sound pretty harsh. However, this lukewarm disciple’s father hadn’t just died. If he had, the son would have been at home mourning for seven days in keeping with Jewish funeral customs. Rather, the man was in one of two situations. Either he was simply anticipating his father’s death sometime in the future (and perhaps an inheritance that would make following Jesus easier) or his father had died in recent months and, consistent with the customs of that time, been placed in a cave tomb for a year-long process of decomposition, at the end of which his bones would be collected for burial.

Either way, what the disciple is really saying is, “I’ll follow you when life gets better, less stressful, more organized, and more convenient.” Have you ever said that? Have you said it recently? Have you ever imagined doing great things for Jesus “when life slows down”? That’s the approach this man tries to take to discipleship and Jesus rejects it out of hand.

Jesus’ invitation to “Follow me” always means TODAY. Right now, when life feels out of control. There’s no better day to commit and follow Jesus with ALL your heart, soul, mind, and strength than TODAY. Don’t wait for life to slow down (it won’t). Don’t wait for a “better” time because there are no guarantees about the future. Don’t wait until you clean up your life and get organized – let Jesus do that while you’re following Him!

Earthly affairs certainly matter but not nearly so much as the blessing, joy, honor, privilege, purpose, and transformation we experience by living a fully-devoted, Kingdom-centered, Christ-following life today and every day. Stop imagining the future and start doing great things for Jesus now! Don’t wait, follow Jesus today!

“And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.’ And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” – Matthew 8:2-3

As you reflect on this encounter, don’t just admire the power of Jesus to instantly heal a chronic and degenerative skin disease. Admire His tender love and mercy. To be a leper in those days was to be shunned as a permanent outcast. Lepers were forced to dress distinctively as a warning to others. They had to shout that they were unclean to anyone who got close to them. They couldn’t participate in the religious or social life of Israel. Work usually became impossible because nobody was allowed to work with them. Their disease became their identity and they couldn’t escape it.

It was likely that nobody had touched this man for years. To touch a leper was to become unclean and to risk becoming a leper yourself. It was against the Law. Imagine being so feared and despised that nobody would even touch you! Then Jesus touched this man. Jesus didn’t just choose to dramatically heal every aspect of this man’s broken life. He did so by touching him.

In that moment, Jesus validated that this despised outcast was still a human being. Jesus affirmed that he was still made in God’s image and still precious to His Creator. He was, in fact, worthy of being touched. When nobody else would touch him, Jesus gently stretched out His hand and touched Him. Jesus didn’t need to touch him to heal the man. He chose to touch Him, an act of compassion concerned not only with healing his body, but healing his spirit that felt so very unclean, unloved, and outcast. That’s your Savior! Meditate on His mercy, gentleness, love, and compassion because He’s Who we’re called to imitate today!