Accountability from Jesus
Paying attention to the accountability that Jesus gave to His disciples is crucial to identifying and continuing down the pathway of being a disciple of Jesus. We find Jesus expressing and challenging the disciples to meet a standard in different situations throughout Scripture.
Luke 9:37-43
A man brings his son to Jesus’s disciples to have them cast out a demon, but “they could not” (Luke 9:40 ESV). Jesus responds with a pretty sharp rebuke, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” (Luke 9:41). Don’t move on from Jesus’s rebuke without recognizing who Jesus is talking to. There are only three possibilities. Was it all who were around to hear, because Jesus came to reconcile the sins of the world (John 1:29)? Was He just speaking to the father, because God “visits the iniquities of a father to the third and fourth generation” (Deut. 5:9)? Or was He talking to the disciples whom He had just commissioned to have power over demons (Luke 9:1)?
Jesus is holding the disciples accountable. A parallel recording of this passage is in Mark chapter 9. In verse twenty-eight the disciples ask why they could not cast out the demon Mark 9:28), and Jesus’s answer revealed their lack of discipline to pray and fast (Mark 9:29). God gives gifts to His children through the display of the fruit of the Spirit, but the ineffectiveness of those gifts can come through our lacking to maintain faithfulness to God through prayer and fasting.[1]
Take steps in prayer and fasting to keep your gifts effective for God’s glory.
[1] Jon Courson. Jon Courson’s Application Commentary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003, 349.
Luke 9:37-43
A man brings his son to Jesus’s disciples to have them cast out a demon, but “they could not” (Luke 9:40 ESV). Jesus responds with a pretty sharp rebuke, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” (Luke 9:41). Don’t move on from Jesus’s rebuke without recognizing who Jesus is talking to. There are only three possibilities. Was it all who were around to hear, because Jesus came to reconcile the sins of the world (John 1:29)? Was He just speaking to the father, because God “visits the iniquities of a father to the third and fourth generation” (Deut. 5:9)? Or was He talking to the disciples whom He had just commissioned to have power over demons (Luke 9:1)?
Jesus is holding the disciples accountable. A parallel recording of this passage is in Mark chapter 9. In verse twenty-eight the disciples ask why they could not cast out the demon Mark 9:28), and Jesus’s answer revealed their lack of discipline to pray and fast (Mark 9:29). God gives gifts to His children through the display of the fruit of the Spirit, but the ineffectiveness of those gifts can come through our lacking to maintain faithfulness to God through prayer and fasting.[1]
Take steps in prayer and fasting to keep your gifts effective for God’s glory.
[1] Jon Courson. Jon Courson’s Application Commentary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003, 349.
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