12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. ~ Luke 6:12-19
It is no different for you and me. We are at our best when we are most aware that we are utterly dependent upon Him for our lives and ministry. Most believe we are at our best when we seem to be sinning less. That is not reality, give up on that idea. No, we are at our best when we are most aware of Him in our lives. He is the key to it all.
On the heels of spending the whole night in prayer, the Lord Jesus chooses twelve key men who will carry out the ministry of the proclamation of His gospel after He has ascended to the Father. The lesson? When making decisions, we must be ardent in seeking the face of the Lord.
The Lord Jesus chose common men to be His disciples. Four of them were fishermen. One of them was a tax collector. One of them was money hungry who turned out to be a betrayer. We don't know the occupations of the rest of them, but they were common folk.
The reality of the moment drove the Lord Jesus into the mountains to pray to God all night. And the Lord obviously directs the Lord Jesus to choose the twelve. E.M. Bounds once said, "Prayer makes a godly man, and puts within him the mind of Christ, the mind of humility, of self-surrender, of service, of pity, and of prayer. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying."
If you are like me, you struggle with whether your prayers are effective, until we recognize that the success of our prayer life is not in the one praying them but in the one answering them. The prayers of the Lord Jesus were all perfectly consistent with the mind and will of God for He Himself was also God. And therein do we see again the incredible mystery of His humanity and His deity brought together.
In v.13 we read, "When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles."
In ancient times, both in the Greek culture and the Jewish culture when there was a prominent rabbi or a prominent orator, prominent philosopher, prominent teacher, they would attract people. In those days they would follow him around and typically they were itinerant teachers who went from place to place and taught the way that the Lord Jesus did and they would collect followers.
So, He calls all the disciples together, in v.13 the Lord Jesus chose twelve among many, perhaps as many as five hundred followers.
At the end of the book of Revelation we have a description of heaven and we have a description of the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city. According to Revelation 21:12-14, this city has around it a high wall, great and high wall, twelve gates and on the top of the gates is written the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. You have the children of Jacob, the twelve sons of Jacob that identify the twelve tribes and all their names are on the tops of the gates.
In v.14, and the wall of the city, apparently at the same point, had twelve foundation stones and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Not only are they going to reign in the Millennial Kingdom, but they're going to be immortalized eternally in the foundation. Their name is going to be emblazoned in the gold foundations of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, forever and ever and ever.
In v.13 we read, "...and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles." The Greek verb used here means "to send." These are sent ones. “Apostle” identifyies the twelve as the official representatives of the Lord Jesus.
Mark 3 records this same event and he adds, "And He appointed twelve that they might be with Him." There is a two-step process here before they could be sent out to preach. It was absolutely critical that they be with the Lord Jesus before they were sent out. This was critical to their training.
It isn't until Luke 9 that the Lord Jesus calls the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. He literally delegated to them His miracle power. The next step, He gives them miracle power, power to cast out demons. And the last step, He will send them out.
Up to this point, the Lord Jesus was speaking to huge crowds but now that He has identified the twelve, He will teach them more exclusively and they will go out to preach the gospel and then come back.
Luke mentions the twelve six times in his gospel and about thirty times in the book of Acts because their role is so central not only to the ministry of the gospel, but also to the founding of the church as he records it in the book of Acts.
Speaking of the twelve in Acts 4 the people said about them, they are uneducated and unskilled. But the people also said, in the same passage, it was obvious they had been with Jesus. They had been with the Lord Jesus and they had His message, His presence and His power.
Courage rules when we are close to God and fear rules when we are distant from God. Spend enough time with the Lord Jesus and His presence will begin to take over our lives to the point that others recognize Him through us.
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