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Pack your bags, wait, don’t (Matthew 10:9-10) February 25, 2016

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Read it in a year – Job 15-16

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Today’s Devotional

Matthew 10:9-10
Jesus:Do not take money with you: don’t take gold, silver, or even small, worthless change. Do not pack a bag with clothes. Do not take sandals or a walking stick. Be fed and sheltered by those who show you hospitality.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

So, what’s one of the first things you do when you go on a vacation or a business trip these days? If you’re like me, you make motel reservations. I want to make sure I have a place to sleep when I get off the plane or finish the long drive to wherever I’m going. I know I’m going to be tired after traveling and the last thing I want to be doing is trying to find a place to sleep. Once I know I have a place to sleep and know how I’m going to travel, I pack my bags.

After 30 years in the Army and several years in the corporate world after that, I know a little about traveling. I know how to pack pretty lean, but I know what I need to for short or long trips and I take care to make sure I have what I need. It doesn’t take me long to pack my bags because I’ve done it a lot. But I take what I need. I know where everything goes in my bag and everything is in its place so I can find what I need even in the dark. Lots of lessons learned through years of travel have helped me wean down my necessities, but I still need that one bag when I travel by plane, train, or automobile.

Once I arrive, I start looking for the restaurants with cars around them. It doesn’t matter what flavor of food I eat as long as it seems to appeal to the local populace and has a crowd. Restaurants with empty parking lots are usually not places I want to try in strange cities. So, I look around my surroundings for those favorite places for the locals to make sure I know some spots close by where I can get some reasonably good food at reasonable prices. Those crowded parking lots are usually a good clue.

I have to admit, I can not remember a single time in my life launching out the way Jesus told the disciples to travel. Talk about faith.

Put on your sandals, tighten your belt and start walking. When you get to a town, find someone that will listen to your message and take you in. If you can’t find anyone in the village that will give you a place to eat and sleep, shake the dust off your feet and move on. Wow! I’d be asking about the Holiday Inn or Days Inn or something! “Jesus, do you really mean that? Just go and hope someone will take care of us, just like that? Isn’t that a little on the crazy side?”

Granted, middle-eastern hospitality rules are little different than ours. Hebrew hospitality insisted that if you saw a fellow Hebrew in the city square without a place to stay, you should take them in and show them your hospitality. The problem then, like now, is that trust was starting to disappear. After all, Israel sat along the crossroads between Europe and Africa. A lot of strangers wandered through the villages traveling from one place to another. How could you be sure these two or three men that came into the village weren’t thieves or worse?

And with all the taxes Rome required, the economy wasn’t so great. Feeding another mouth or two when they had no money to offer in exchange for their meals…well, that’s just rude. At least they could offer to help pay for the food they ate, right? But Jesus told them to take no gold or silver or even pocket change. The disciples were just out there learning a lesson in faith as they share the message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

So what are we to do with this? First, I think we should recognize that God will take care of us when He sends us on a mission. We don’t need to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear, just as He told us in the Sermon on the Mount. Second, I think He tells us as He showed His disciples, we will face times with Him when He will test our faith. Expect it as part of growing as a Christian. He will put us in situations where our only recourse is to lean entirely on Him. We will find ourselves with nothing left but our faith. But as with the disciples on that mission trip, that will be enough. He will make a way for us if we will trust Him.

It took a lot of faith for the disciples to head out on the tasks Jesus gave them that day. Don’t take money with you. Don’t pack a bag. Don’t take any extra clothes or sandals. Just start walking and trust me to take care of you through the people you meet along the way. Trust Me and share the good news that I have arrived. The kingdom of heaven isn’t just coming, it’s here. I have arrived.

Can you trust Him the way the disciples did on their first missionary venture?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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