Saturday 11 July, 2015

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. 8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

I love the simplicity of this story.  Jesus calls a group of people together, disciples, followers.  He gives them specific authority, to cast out demons, and sends them with a strategy, two by two, no extra food, clothing and to accept the hospitality offered to them.  If hospitality is not offered, and this would be rare in the culture of the day, then to leave making plain that the people of the village could not even offer common courtesies, then he leaves it up to them.  And look at what they did – they got on with the job and with significant fruit.

There are times we simply complicate things far too much!  We do all we can to emphasise this aspect, and caution about this and train for this.  There are times, in ministry, in business, in leadership – in every aspect of life in fact that we need the simplest of instruction and then to have a go!

Where am I tied up by red tape, green tape, whatever tape and am therefore less effective?  What about you – do you baulk at doing things, that you know are right because of fear of the system, fear of man…

Father, renew our spirit of faith – that our risk taking may go up and our caution be submitted to true faith in You!

Written by Ps. Richard Botta