Disciples of Jesus Are Human

There is one thing that we can never forget about disciples of Jesus and that is that they (we) are human.

When a person surrenders their life to Jesus they don’t become perfect. They don’t become infallible. They don’t become superman or superwoman.

Disciples of Jesus are not all-powerful.

In Matthew 17:16 listen to the powerless condition of the disciples. It says, “And I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not heal him.” The disciples could not heal the demon possessed boy. That does not make them bad or faithless; it makes them human.

There are five things that are true of all disciples of Jesus that show they are human.

Disciples of Jesus are ordinary.

Matthew 12:1
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

Luke 22:45
And He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow.

Disciples get hungry.
Disciples get sleepy.
Disciples experience sorrow.

Disciples of Jesus are ordinary people who serve an extraordinary God.

Disciples of Jesus can be fearful.

In Matthew 26:56 it says that all of Jesus’ disciples left Him and fled. They fled out of fear of being arrested.

In John 20:19 it says, “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews.”

The disciples were fearful that they, like Jesus, would be arrested and executed so they ran away and hid. And these are the guys that the Jewish leaders said stole Jesus’ body. They were hiding out of fear, not because they were trying to fake a resurrection.

Disciples of Jesus are tempted.

In Luke 17:1 Jesus says to His disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!”

Everyone is tempted. Disciples of Jesus face temptations just like everyone else. In fact, as disciples we are going to be faced with more temptations because Satan attacks us more. Why does Satan attack disciples more? Because we belong to Jesus. And he hates Jesus and everyone connected to Jesus.

Disciples of Jesus struggle.

In John 6 Jesus shared some very hard teachings and many of the disciples left and stop following Jesus at that point.

In verse 60 it says, “When many of His disciples heard it they said, ‘This a hard saying; who can listen to it.’”

In many cases I hear people talk about not feeling close to God because they are struggling with some area of their lives. Listen, struggling is not bad. Struggling means that I am not giving in. Struggling means I am fighting, not just giving up.

We have to remember we are in a war and war means struggle.

In Philippians 2:12 Paul says to “work out” your own salvation with fear and trembling. Paul is not saying work for your salvation. He is saying that to follow and obey Jesus is a struggle. Being a disciple of Jesus is hard. It will hurt and be painful at times because being a disciple is a struggle.

In Matthew 26:41 Jesus finds His disciples asleep in the garden. He says to them, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Disciples of Jesus are weak.

We don’t have the physical or spiritual strength in our own natural human resources to follow and obey Jesus as He requires. If we could, Jesus would never have had to come and die for us on the cross.

Remember Romans 3:23 says we have all sinned and come short of God’s glorious standard.

Everyone is either a sinner or a recovering sinner. Sinners, even the recovering ones, cannot obey God in their own strength.

Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.”

God knows we don’t have it in our natural selves to obey Him so He graciously gives us as His disciples the Holy Spirit.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about acknowledging that we as disciples of Jesus are human. We are:
Ordinary
Fearful
Tempted
Struggling
Weak

We don’t need to pretend that we are all-power or all-knowing or all-loving or have our lives all together. We have an All-Power, All-Knowing, All-Loving God who does have it all together so we don’t have to and we can depend on Him.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about being authentic and transparent.

Disciples of Jesus don’t have to change the world. We just have to be fully surrendered to Jesus so He can change the world through us.

Disciples of Jesus don’t have to pretend to be something we are not or cannot be. We only have to be the people that God created us to be. He will enable us to accomplish His will when we humble ourselves before Him.

The world doesn’t need to see what you and I can do. They need to see Jesus. The world will see Jesus in the life of His disciples when we, Jesus’ disciples, admit we are human and let Jesus fill us with His Spirit.

As a Human Connected to Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe