Filters

Maybe you have many different people you could spend your time reaching out to. Jesus certainly did. So, how did He find the faithful few who would follow Him and how did he invest his time? It seems that at times He was searching for those who refused to be denied of Him by roadblocks; some of which He, Himself erected.

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Jesus used some methods to filter out those who were not going to be committed to Him. He used hard sayings, parables and exposed idols that people placed as more important than Jesus. 

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HARD SAYINGS

Jesus demanded greater allegiance than to one's parents (Matt 10: 32 - 38) and spoke about his blood being imbibed (John 6:52-68). To a non-Jew, He prioritized his ministry to Jews first (Mark 7:24-30) and He wanted His followers to lose their lives for His sake (Matthew 16:24-26 ). These hard sayings filtered out the casual follower.

 

PARABLES
In both Matthew 13:9-17 and Mark 4:1-12 Jesus explains His use of parables. He said that the secrets were only given to His disciples to understand, but sometimes the disciples did not in fact understand. But the asked. It's almost as if Jesus made things difficult to understand to see if people were hungry enough to bring Him follow-up questions. 

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IDOLATRY
In Mark 10:17-24 Jesus meets a who would appear interested in eternal life. Jesus, however, discerns that he is really more interested in worldly life. Instead of leading him in a prayer of salvation, Jesus is able to show him that his riches are more important to him than following Christ. 

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JESUS' TIME WITH HIS DISCIPLES

Even after filtering out those who wouldn't pay the price to follow Him, Jesus still prioritized which disciples He invested more in. Yes, He invested in the seventy-two, but He didn't give them as much time as the twelve. And of the twelve, did He not give more special attention to the three? 

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APPLICATION

So for us there are a couple of take aways. As we share Christ with others, we must share also with them the cost of following Christ. Jesus is Lord and Master, not vice versa. Our second lesson is that as we disciple, we must be discerning as to who we invest most of our time with.