Matthew 10

Matthew 10.....
Jessica....here we go!
First of all, Jesus gave authority to 12 men to get rid of evil spirits in people, heal disease, and sickness too. (Verse 1).
Jesus called his 12 disciples....a disciple is a learner who becomes a follower. Being a disciple of Jesus we learn from him and follow him .....and these 12 men learned from Jesus.
1. Simon (called Peter.....Peter became a great leader of the Christians as we will see later in the New Testament)
2. Andrew (peter's brother)
3. James
4. John (James brother)
5. Philip
6. Bartholomew ( also called Nathanael)
7. Thomas
8. Matthew ( the tax collector where Jesus ate dinner one night)
9. James
10. Thaddaeus
11. Simon the zealot (zealots were a group who wanted to overthrow the roman rule of Israel....he was probably in this group before meeting Jesus)
12. Judas Iscariot ( who later betrayed Jesus.....we will read all about this soon)

Jesus gives these disciples instructions. They are to go to the lost ones in Israel. Before Jesus death he wanted the good news of his kingdom to be for the Jews. After his resurrection.....the good news was for the Gentiles as well.
Verse 17..... Jesus is telling them to be on guard. He knows they could get beat up and ridiculed by men when they are preaching and healing in Jesus name.
Verse 18-20.....Jesus says WHEN you are arrested......there is guarantee they will end up arrested for Jesus sake. He's telling them here not to worry about what they will say to the judge.....the Holy Spirit will speak through them.
Verse 22.... All men will hate them because of Jesus.
Verse 28.....don't be afraid of those who can kill a body, but be afraid of those who can kill a soul. This verse is telling us we need to respect God!
Verse 30.....even the number of hairs on our heads are counted. Think about how much hair we lose on a daily basis. Our number of hairs changes all the time. Yet our God knows how many we have ant any given time.
Verse 32.....this is simple.....acknowledge Jesus to men and he will acknowledge us before the father.
Verse 37-40......Jesus is saying that he has to have top priority in our life. We are to give total surrender to him alone. We are to love him above our parents....our spouse.....our kids.
Taking up our cross daily is making a total commitment to him....daily. We want our own way. We want to sin, but Jesus is telling us to take our cross.....think about what we will do and put him first instead of what we want. This is the first mention of the cross. A cross was looked as an instrument of death. This symbol here is telling us that our total commitment should be to Christ.....even unto death. We must fear God.....not fear as in being totally afraid of him, but fear in total respect. When we respect someone of authority, we respect them.

All these words Jesus spoke to the disciples before they went out to minister to people are written for us today. His word is alive and active. We need to trust and obey what's written for us.