To Encourage You

Luke 10:8-9 “Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

I have F.W. Boreham to, again, thank, for his thoughts on the passage above from Luke 10.  In it we have Jesus’ direction to 72 of His followers as He sent them out two by two to preach the gospel in the towns where He was about to go.  In his essay “The Glory on the Doorstep,” Boreham unpacks the great wisdom that is contained in what Jesus said.  First, He told His disciples to eat what those they met in these cities would set before them. In other words, they were to socialize with them.  They were to follow the example of Jesus who ate and drank with sinners.  In effect, He is telling them to associate with them at their level, and even at a level “a little less than them” as guests to those who might host them.  It’s an attitude of humility which anyone who is a follower of the One Who humbled Himself so supremely had done.

Then Jesus tells them to heal the sick.  Here his disciples were to come alongside them, sharing in their suffering and helping them in any way that they could.  They were to show empathy by sharing in their sorrows.  In this sense they were demonstrating a sense of being “equal with them.” It’s that attitude of one who would “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).  It’s the example Jesus laid down in the parable of the good Samaritan who came alongside one who had been beaten by thieves and was in great need.

Finally, Jesus tells those who would follow Him to say to those whom they met “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” This is the glorious message of the gospel. It’s the best news that has ever been given to men.  It’s a truth that can lift one up from where they are to the glory of becoming adopted into the glorious family of God.  It’s a message that comes to people from “above them,” for it’s a message from God to man.

But Boreham then reflects on the truth that this wonderful message is what he termed, “the glory on the doorstep.” He says this because, although it is the glorious message of the kingdom of God that we are to preach, it is the responsibility of those to whom we preach it to receive it.  It can either be embraced and welcomed into a life or home, or it can be rejected on the doorstep and never permitted to enter in. It’s a sad reality, but it’s the way it must be, for God won’t force anyone to enter His kingdom, despite the wonderful blessings that are there for us. 

What wisdom our Lord has laid down with these few words as He tells His disciples the means to a person’s heart.  Although believers are the very children of the living God, they are to always remember from whence they came. They aren’t better than anyone. In addition, they are to have a heart for everyone in need. It is these attitudes and the actions that spring from them, that are the Savior’s directives to us as we interact with a world in need.  Yet that world may reject us, just as it did Him. They might not receive us, for our Master came unto His own and His own received Him not. But in all of this we must keep in mind that “to all who DID receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). 

Praise His glorious name!