Wednesday, April 13

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:66-69

Theme for the Day: A Disciple’s Allegiance to Jesus

When we practice spiritual disciplines and begin to make them our own, we will see transforming growth in our relationships with God, fellow disciples, other people, and the world. These disciplines will help us learn what it means to abide in Jesus. Jesus teaches that we are to abide in him and in his word. Jesus said to those who believed in him, If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32). What are we free from? We are free from the power, pollution, and pathology of sin. We abide in Christ by practicing the disciplines for the spiritual life, by following Jesus into his practices, and by fleeing from sin that so easily entangles us. We thus, as Paul writes, work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

Dallas Willard writes, The assumption of Jesus’ program for his people on earth was that they would live their lives as his students and co-laborers. They would find him so admirable in every respect—wise, beautiful, powerful, and good—that they would constantly seek to be in his presence and be guided, instructed, and helped by him in every aspect of their lives. This is what it means to abide in Jesus, to be constantly seeking to be in his presence. In doing this we learn from Jesus to live a life as if he were living it. This is not to say that we do everything Jesus did, for we cannot. But it does mean to live in the manner that he did, open to God, proclaiming God’s truth, and living for God’s purposes.

Disciples do not reluctantly follow Jesus. Instead, having counted the cost, they understand what discipleship means. Jesus said to a would-be follower who wasn’t quite ready: No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). Further on in Luke Jesus adds: Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:25-33).

Does Jesus mean that a disciple is literally to hate his parents, carry a cross, and relinquish all our possessions? (Here’s a warning: Jesus was known to use hyperbole!) The point Jesus is making is one of exclusive allegiance to him. As long as there is something more valuable to us than Jesus, we will be distracted from trusting completely in him and learning from him. If we are to abide in his word, then we will fill our minds and our being with the words of the Gospels. We will attend to learning from Paul’s epistles and the great general epistles from Hebrews to Revelation. We will decide not to fill our minds and our studies with things that turn our attention away from the Master. We do not drift into discipleship, but become disciples through purposely abiding in Jesus and his word.

The white elephant in the church, according to Dallas Willard, is the division of professing Christians into those for whom it is a matter of whole-life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer, or client, relationship to the church. The need in the church today is to make disciples out of those in the church. Jesus said to train them to do everything I told you. He also said, those who hear me and do what I say are like those intelligent people who build their homes on solid rock, where rain and floods and winds cannot shake them (Matthew 7:24-25). The question for you is Which of these am I? Read Psalm 16 below and ask God to make your heart like the heart of the psalm writer:

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
    I have no good apart from you."

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
   in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
   their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
   or take their names on my lips.

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
   you hold my lot.
   The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
   indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
   in the night also my heart instructs me.
   I have set the LORD always before me;
   because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
   my flesh also dwells secure.
   For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
   in your presence there is fullness of joy;
   at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Self-examination, repentance, prayer, and worship:

Before you pray, take some time to reflect on the most important human relationships in your life. Perhaps there is one in particular that is troubled and about which you are concerned. Ask the Lord to assist in correcting/reconciling that relationship, and then pray a prayer like the following:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by unhappy divisions in our relationships in life, especially those in your Church; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Spend further time in prayer and worship before studying the Gospel of John below.

Study: John 11:45-57, The Plot to Kill Jesus

 ⁴⁵ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, ⁴⁶but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. ⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." ⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish." ⁵¹He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵²and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. ⁵³So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.

 ⁵⁴Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.

 ⁵⁵Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶ They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?" ⁵⁷Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

Reflection Questions:

1)  The role of the high priest was to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple once a year on the Day of Atonement and offer God a sacrifice for the sins of the people. God instituted the high priesthood at the time of Moses and brings its purposes to an end in the person of Caiaphas, who works behind the scene for the death of Jesus. How does Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross fulfill the sacrificial requirements of the Law?

2)  Since God instituted the high priesthood and the sacrificial system, is it accurate to conclude that ultimately God is the one behind the impending death of his Son?