Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: Mark 3:13-19

By Mark 3, Jesus’ ministry had started to attract such intense opposition that “the Pharisees began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” (v.6) So Jesus “withdrew with His disciples” (v.7) to Lake Galilee where He entered an intense season of teaching, healing, and driving out “impure spirits” (v.9-12).

The intense opposition had alerted Jesus to the fact that the clock was sticking on His earthly life and ministry. The power of His ministry would never have had the world changing effect Jesus intended if it had ended with Him. So, after a night of personal solitude on a mountainside, Jesus “called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out.” (v.13-14)

This was Jesus’ master-plan for establishing His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven even after He was gone. He called together a small group of twelve so that He could eventually “send them out” to replicate His ministry. But first, in order to prepare and strengthen and train them for their world-changing ministry, He called them into an intimate, family-style setting. Here they would encounter Jesus through enjoying intimate fellowship with Himself and through growing deeper in their fellowship with one another. Here they would receive teaching, training and equipping from Jesus Himself, but would also establish comradeship and partnerships with one another that would sustain them in their faith and ministry when they weren’t with Jesus.

The Risen and Living Lord Jesus still uses this method today. He calls us to Himself to enjoy personal intimacy with Him and also to be His disciples through the primary vehicle of community with other disciples. After all, didn’t He promise us that where two or three of us gather ‘in His Name’ He will be ‘there in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20)?

Our salvation is not first received through belonging to a small fellowship group in our local church … BUT belonging and being meaningfully connected to other disciples in such a group deepens the reality of our salvation because it brings genuine community with Jesus, and is the “means of grace” through which Jesus still chooses to grow us in Christlikeness, teach us to live the life of the Kingdom, train us for ministry, and give us a safe ‘home base’ from which to send us out to establish His Kingdom in our world.

Lord Jesus, forgive me for ever believing that I could follow You in isolation from others in whom You dwell. Please help me to connect more meaningfully to a small group of fellow believers, so that I may be open to Your presence and ministry flowing through them to me and through me to them. Please make a way for this, and please give me the courage and endurance to do whatever I need to do to make it happen. Amen.