A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Luke 6:40

Imagine that your job is to teach blind musicians to water-ski…  You know everything about how boats work, how the water dynamics and the waves affect you.  You know about the tow-rope, the skis, and watching out for other watercraft.  It’s really not a difficult thing for you to do, or teach.  Only now, you’re dealing with people who don’t have a clue, and don’t have even an ability to have a clue.  Yet…

Jesus said that no one could see the Kingdom unless they were born again (John 3:3).  Jesus’ ministry on Earth was to teach and preach concerning the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus was faced with the throngs of followers early in His ministry, and told so by His disciples, He simply said, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.” (Mark 1:38).  Early success and popularity did not distract Him.

The Gospel of the Kingdom requires something.  You must be born again, believing in Jesus, and you divorce yourself from every other pursuit.  Other things may be added to you, but, in general, what you sow at first will be the measure you reap, and the measure you use, will be the measure measured back to you (Mark 4:24).

So, consider those blind musicians…  You could be standing at the water’s edge, holding the keys to the speedboat.  If you tell them about the waves, what do they know about waves?  If you tell them about the boat, what do they know about the boat?  They only know what they can touch, and what they can hear.  They have no grasp of this aquatic other life that you know so well.

This is true of the Spirit.  Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).  This is both the beginning and end of the work, and it’s entirety.  And, while the teachings of Jesus are not always the most lengthy, they are that good seed which produces the correct harvest.

How would you begin to tell someone who knows nothing about the realm of the heavens, except to first start by talking about earthly things?  This is how Jesus began with Nicodemus (John 3:12).  But, Nicodemus had trouble believing even at that level!  Yet, if we, having believed on simple things at that level, we can begin to learn about other things.  This is more of what happened when He met Nathanael (John 1:50-51).  Nathanael believed from one word of knowledge, and Jesus immediately turned to talking about the heavens.

Yet, what He did do was to teach twelve men how to live within the Kingdom of Heaven, how to flow and keep on going, and how to finish well.  Everyone one, except the one who never really believed in the first place (Judas the traitor), went on to be martyred according to church history, one way or another (John the Apostle the sort-of exception, because he wouldn’t die).  And, what do we see today?  We don’t see a whole lot of the level of power coupled with the level of love and freedom and brotherhood that was evident much in the church today.

Yet, Jesus said, that the one fully trained would be like Him (see verse above).

His eyes were on something else, His goals were not earthly success, but pleasing the Father.  His trade was the works of the Kingdom, the miraculous anointing, and His instruments were the words that the Father gave Him.

While you can make note of all the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, He trained primarily them to seek heaven first (Matthew 6:33), and to rely on the Spirit (John 6:63).  In every attitude and heart motivation, the focus was always what lasted.  Even when the disciples wanted to rejoice over their latest ministry adventure, His instruction was to rejoice at something greater than an earthly ministry success (Luke 10:20).

By one look, all of Jesus’ teachings thoroughly summarize and explain the deliverances of the Old Testament.  Why did God deliver at this time for this person?  Precisely because of the conditions met in Jesus’ teachings.  Why did God judge?  Precisely because of the warnings of Jesus.

Of all His promises, this is a good one to remember in the midst of the day-to-day walking out of faith.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Matthew 5:7

Quite plainly, God is perfect, and His ways are perfect, and, for those who would walk godly in Christ Jesus, the need to have a tighter and tighter walk is both a desire and a necessity (see 2 Corinthians 10:6 for some of this).  It could even be seen that even as Jesus had mercy on his own disciples when they had the willingness, but not the physical strength to finish the night in the garden in prayer (Matthew 26:41), He too received his own mercy in kind the following day, as His natural strength failed him, and Simon was given to carry His cross.

We don’t know what another has been through.  We don’t know how much they have received and how much they are accountable to God for.  For one, God says you must do this and this and this, or I cannot bless you here.  For another, He may have less or more.  God, while loving, is also the Lord of Stewardship, and does not want anything to go to waste (John 6:12).  As Moses was faithful in all God’s house (Numbers 12:7), so Jesus certainly was as well, in that He was greater than Moses.  So we come to the place, where everything matters, even every idle word (Matthew 12:36).

You cannot escape the responsibility of the Kingdom, and you can only fully operate in it once you have been fully trained by the Lord.  Some of this may be hands-on, as it was for the disciples, but the simple lessons of faith that Jesus portrayed in the Gospels help us, with the right heart of full devotion to our Lord, serve Him without distraction, with singleness of vision, and stay on the course until the end.  Operating in faith is not enough.  When the disciples wanted to call down fire, it does not say the Lord said they could not, but that they should not.  They were not called to destroy, but to save.  Jesus was very explicit, and told them no.  But, it is the authority subjected to the Spirit which must be taught.

And, like those who started out as blind, we say we see, more and more, because of the revelation that comes to us along the way.  What we only knew dimly at one point comes further into focus, every time we step forward into faith, and out of the carnal lifestyle.  Every time we embrace faith and the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst for what it truly is.

Here.  Now.  Forever.  Jesus is Eternal, and in Him all things consist and hold together.