"And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse; but be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats."
Being followers of Christ, whether it be at home or out in a foreign country, we know that we are all called to die to our selfish needs and be like Christ to others. While this passage speaks to me during my circumstances of being on a small team sent out from a bigger team onto a foreign mission field, this passage also applies to couples, families, kids in highschool; any Christians life really, considering that darkness is all around us, we are called to constantly be lights in this world. Here Chirst sends out His disciples in I guess we can call it, small groups. Before sending them out, He gives them power over the unclean spirits. Here we see that when we are going out into this world we need walk in the power of Chirst. We need to be faithful to recieve His power, that He wants to bestow upon us. If we know the fact that with Chirst all things are possible, then we should understand that without Christ, nothing is possible. While there are "good" people in this world, who love others, who go out and do volunteer work at hospitals and retirement homes, who take care of the homeless and the orphans, if they are not doing it for Christ, it will amount to nothing at the end of their lives. Continueing on in this passage, after He gives them His power, He tells them that they should take nothing with them but a staff and sandals and the clothes on their backs. After I read this, I quickly remembered that our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He tells them to keep a staff on them; do we know anyone who has used a staff because the Lord told them to? Here Christ is telling them what they need; shirt, pants sandals, staff and Him. God did amaizing things through men in the Old Testiment, and while I don't want to make extreme assumtions, I feel like most of these men had clothes, a staff, and God. Now I'm not saying that we need to all go out and buy staffs, but the picture here is very clear to me that all we need to serve Christ and to survive in this world is our clothes, our shoes our Lord, and what He has given us to use for His glory. While we all have spiritual gifts, we all have phyiscal gifts that we can use every day to bring glory to our Father, thats why He gave us these gifts in the first place. Like I said before, Our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomrrow, so if He told Joshua that He has given him every place that the sole of his foot will tread upon, and He has told us to not worry about what we will eat or wear because He feeds the foul of the air and He clothes the grass of the field, He will take care of us if we would allow Him to.
I will pray in the mornings that I will use the gifts God has given me to the fullest of my abilities!
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