Introduction

Do you remember what you were doing when you were eleven or twelve years old? The transition period between primary and secondary school when everything was both a little scary and exciting at the same time. You were in ‘big school’ now, and yet ‘big’ was not how you felt because, once again, you were back to being among the youngest members of the school. Confidence can often take a bit of a knock and it can take some time to get that back in place.

In Luke 2, we come across a boy of a similar age, who apparently was not lacking in confidence at all. His name was Jesus, and He was sitting in the temple at Jerusalem listening to the teachers, as well as asking and answering questions. Luke tells us that, ‘all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers’ (Luke 2:47). Eighteen years later He would reveal who He truly was as He travelled across the whole region teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God. He went from listening to teachers to being the teacher. Unfortunately, not everyone would realise that they were being taught by the Son of God and that His teachings would lead them back to the Father.

Yet there were many who, as soon as they heard Jesus, would follow Him to the next town or village to hear Him again, such was their hunger for teaching and for leadership. Just like today, the people at that time were not short of teachers or rabbis. There may have been synagogues in every town, and religious leaders aplenty, but it was still as if they were ‘in a dry and weary land where there is no water’ (Psalm 63:1). The people had an unquenched thirst and something within told them that Jesus was the well at which they should drink.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteous, for they shall be satisfied.
(Matthew 5:6)

Does your soul thirst for the Lord? Do you have a deep hunger to know and understand His Word? Sitting at the feet of Jesus is an incredible experience, for He is the greatest teacher you will ever have. Whether you are a new Christian or simply exploring the fundamentals of your faith, let Jesus teach you what it means to be a disciple, and let the truth of His words seep into your soul. If your faith needs a boost, He can fill you with boldness and strength, or if you just feel a bit lost, He can get you back on track.

The lessons of Jesus are forthright, challenging and often tough, but what they produce is a deep-rooted life of faith which stands on a solid foundation. Christ is our cornerstone,[1] and every lesson that He gives helps us to build a strong and steadfast faith. The Christian life is not an easy one; there are days of joy and days of sorrow; there are great achievements and great failures; there is love and there is hurt. We all have amazing times when life is lived on the mountaintop, and we also have the reality of days that are lived in the shadow of the valley.[2] Our journeys will all be different but, as children of God, our destination is the same.

I hope that through the pages of this book and in the company of those first twelve disciples, your understanding of the gospel truth will grow deeper as you get to know Jesus better. There are so many wonderful verses to help guide our daily lives as followers of Christ, and of those I have barely

scratched the surface. God’s Word brings us valuable lessons which instruct us in the outward expressions of love, compassion, forgiveness and respect towards others, as well as inward expressions of repentance and faithfulness towards God. Through all of these, we spread the beautiful fragrance of Christ wherever we go; a fragrance that is pleasing to God.[3] The Lord Jesus walked in a manner worthy of His calling and fully pleasing to the Father. He is our example in every aspect of life, from first step to last breath. When Jesus gave Himself as the offering on the altar of Calvary, it was ‘a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’ (Ephesians 5:2). When we follow His example and offer our whole lives to God, we too become a pleasing aroma to the Father, for we carry the fragrance of Jesus within us.

Although we will not get everything right all of the time, we must never stop pursuing that goal, and the best place to learn is at the feet of Jesus. Having experienced the realities of this earthly life, He understands the pressures and conflicts, the hurts and the joys, the relationships and all of the daily interactions that we will have. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to let Him teach us as He opens up the truth of His Word and then to let that truth fill our hearts and minds.

What a privilege it was for those first disciples, listening firsthand to the teachings of Jesus, some of whom exclaimed, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ (Luke 24:32). Just imagine listening to the Word of God being recited by the Son of God; the power of it causing your heart to burn. God’s Word truly is kindling for the soul. When we read the Bible, believing it to be the spoken Word of God and allowing it to penetrate our innermost being, it still has the ability to set our hearts on fire.

My prayer for you is that as the Lord leads you forward in faith, His beautiful fragrance will spill out from you to the world around and onto everyone you meet.

Every blessing for the journey.

Carolyn

1

Why the Teacher was needed

For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.
(John 18:37)

Throughout this book, we will essentially be looking at the ‘who, what, where, why and when’ in relation to Jesus, and the ‘how’ in relation to ourselves. In these first few chapters we are going to consider some of the reasons why it was necessary for Him to come to us personally, who He is specifically, and what it means to put our faith in Him completely. As Christians, unless we understand the fundamental elements of our faith, we will be unable to have that faith worked out in a practical and meaningful way. So let’s jump right in and discover why Jesus came.

In the Old Testament, we encounter a God who spoke to people on a one-to-one basis. Adam, Cain, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Hagar, Moses, Joshua… and the list goes on. As time moved on and the people strayed further from God, He appointed judges and kings, prophets and priests to carry His words to the people and to lead them on the right path. Fast-forward to the New Testament and we find that the scribes and Pharisees are the ones who should be leading by example, teaching the truth of the Scriptures and steering the people in the way they should go.

Unfortunately, these leaders did not practise what they preached, which meant that their teaching was more in the way of, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ The people were following ‘blind guides’ (Matthew 15:14) who were leading them deeper into darkness and away from the light of truth. God did not want His people being led further astray through the teaching of hypocrites, and being well aware of the darkness that would envelop them, He had put a plan in place for the light to be sent.

Back in the eighth century BC, God spoke through His prophet Isaiah, saying:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
(Isaiah 60:1-2)

Jesus was the promised light who came to fulfil the truth of the prophecies, proclaim the truth of the Father, explain the truth of the kingdom and declare the truth of the gospel. He came from His place in the heavens to walk among the people on earth, to be God’s glorious light, so that we would no longer stumble around in the dark. He came to openur ears to the truth of the Scriptures so that no one would be led astray, and to open our hearts to the love and compassion of the Father, so that we would not remain a broken people.

Jesus came to remove the scales from our eyes, lift the burdens from our shoulders, quench the thirst of our souls and set us free from the bondage of sin. He came to redeem us and lead us back to the Father.

Removing the scales

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
(John 3:7)

As we read through the Gospels, it becomes evident that a large proportion of the time that Jesus spent teaching was to the masses. However, belief is a personal decision and it leads Jesus to some fascinating encounters and one-on-one conversations. In John 3 we are given access to one of those personal interactions that leads to one of the most well-known verses in the whole Bible – John 3:16. The conversation we get to listen in on takes place between Jesus and a Pharisee called Nicodemus.

Throughout the Gospels we see the disappointment that Jesus feels towards the Pharisees, and His description of them is often less than flattering. Like any group, though, there are always those within it that think slightly differently or who are open to the possibilities of ‘what if’. Nicodemus was one of those men. He knew the Scriptures and he had watched and listened to this rabbi and… well… there was something, but could it truly be…?

It’s possible Nicodemus had spoken to other colleagues who had dismissed his thoughts as ludicrous, but others were having the same feeling. They needed to know who this intriguing rabbi truly was, so Nicodemus agreed to go (or possibly drew the short straw) to speak to Jesus privately. It was decided that under the cover of night would probably be less conspicuous.

When Jesus and he met, he acknowledged that there were those among the Pharisees who had come to believe that Jesus was indeed ‘a teacher come from God’ (John 3:2). Although this was a step in the right direction, their eyes had not yet been fully opened because, as yet, they had not been born of the Spirit. Jesus explained this to him, saying, ‘unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3). First you are born in flesh (natural human birth), then you must be born in Spirit (supernatural spiritual birth). Nicodemus was bewildered and may have felt that for all his studying, he knew very little. Jesus then presented the truth in its most simple form:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

Nicodemus had a lot to work through because everything that he thought he knew needed a rethink. He came to Jesus in the darkness (literally and figuratively), but he left enlightened because he had come to the true light; he just didn’t fully realise it yet. The great thing about this conversation is that this personal encounter with Jesus appears to have ignited something within Nicodemus to continue searching for the truth.[4] The final time we  encounter Nicodemus he is with Joseph of Arimathea and they are taking the body of Jesus to wrap it in linen cloths with spices and then place Him in a new tomb.[5] Would he do this if the scales had not fallen from his eyes to reveal who Jesus really was?

We should never get hung up on what we think we know, and we should avoid getting carried along with the crowd. There is always something more to learn and something new to discover, so never lose the fire within to search further and dig deeper.

Studying the Bible, especially if we are a new Christian, can seem like a daunting task, and it can sometimes feel as if we are reading a manual of dos and don’ts. This can often be overwhelming, so having people around who can help steer us in the right direction is essential, because regardless of whether we are young or old in the faith, we all need spiritual guidance.

The Lord calls and equips leaders to guide His flock. It is a true blessing to be in a fellowship with a great teacher of the Scriptures who helps us understand the Word of God and really brings it to life. Someone who not only tells us what the Bible says, but is also able to show us what that looks like in our day-to-day lives. Church leaders have the same commission that was given to the disciple Peter, to feed and look after us, the lambs and the sheep.[6] (We will look further at the analogy of shepherd and sheep in Chapter Two.)

Pastoral leaders study the Word of God, glean its insights, promises, instructions and truths, and then they bring these truths from God’s heart to ours. Christian maturity develops as these seeds of truth grow, and growth continues through a deeper understanding of God and His Word. Seek out great teachers of Scripture, and each time the seeds of God’s truth are sown into your life, ask the Lord to cultivate them so that the roots become stronger and your understanding grows deeper.

Lifting the burden

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
(Matthew 11:28)

Our bodies all need a certain amount of rest; while we sleep, for example, the body has time to repair itself, rebuild energy stores and restore its optimum working levels. During the time of Jesus’ ministry, the majority of those listening would have had very physical jobs: fishermen, carpenters, stonemasons, field workers, etc. They were accustomed to a hard day’s labour and would have understood the need for rest. Jesus always used everyday situations to help people visualise His teaching, and He spoke right into the heart of their concerns.

Addressing the leaders of the people, Jesus said to them, ‘You load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers’ (Luke 11:46). These spiritual leaders were a law unto themselves and, as previously noted, their motto appeared to be, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ They made the law a burden, and there were so many things to get wrong that the people couldn’t keep up with all the rules. This angered Jesus, who likened them to ‘unmarked graves’ (Luke 11:44), because how is anyone supposed to know they are walking in the wrong place if it is not clearly marked?

In contrast to Jesus, these other leaders appeared to make life as difficult as they could for the people. Jesus could see their struggle, and so, with tenderness and compassion, He looked at each one and said:

Come to me … and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11:28-30)

‘Learn from me.’ There is no better teacher to have than Christ Himself; a pure example of gentleness and humility. As we follow Jesus through the Gospels, ministering and interacting with those deemed to be unworthy, and as we watch how He treats the outcast, the sick, the poor and the sinful, we get a beautiful picture of what it means to be gentle and lowly in heart. Jesus was given all power and authority, and yet He ‘made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant’(Philippians 2:7). This is strength manifested through a humble nature, and Jesus wants us to rest in that strength. What He offers is not just physical rest, for when we come to Him, we receive rest for the soul.

Life gets so busy; it can often become chaotic and everything around us can just feel like noise. We try to do things in our own strength, which is exhausting, and then we wonder why we are constantly tired. Each one of us needs rest for our bodies, rest for our minds and rest for our souls. Without rest we burn out, become unproductive or ineffective and we are unable to function properly. Resting in Jesus not only refreshes us physically and mentally, it also strengthens us spiritually. When we are yoked to His Word and learn from Him, we are brought into a divine sanctuary of deep inner rest.

Quenching the thirst

Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.’
(John 7:37)

Hunger and thirst are things that people can instantly relate to. During His ministry, Jesus travelled extensively and, like all other travellers, He would have known where the wells were situated throughout the region, so as to refill the waterbags. One such well (known as Jacob’s well) was situated just outside Sychar, in Samaria. It was at this well that Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman about living water that would take away all thirst – but it was water that did not come from Jacob’s well. The woman had noticed that the man speaking to her did not appear to have a vessel to draw with, prompting her to ask where this water was coming from. In reply, Jesus told her that the water comes from Him and is ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (John 4:14).

A little further on in John’s Gospel we hear Jesus continue the theme of living water, during the Feast of Booths at Jerusalem. (The Feast of Booths was a time of remembering the forty years in the wilderness, a time of thanksgiving for God’s provision and a time of prayer for the rains for the next year’s harvest.) Jesus wanted all those who were listening to recognise the drought in their own lives and their need for life-giving water. You can sense the urgency in His voice as He stands and cries out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink’ (John 7:37). Rabbis would normally sit and teach, so this immediately feels different as Jesus continues earnestly calling to the people, saying, ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”’ (John 7:38).

There were those among the crowd who responded and believed that Jesus really was the Christ, and I wonder if they, perhaps, recalled the words of the prophet Zechariah or Isaiah, who declared:

On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
(Zechariah 13:1)

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day:
‘Give thanks to the Lord.’
(Isaiah 12:3)

This invitation from Jesus is continually offered and the fountain of life is available to all who thirst for truth, who seek forgiveness and who long to be filled with the ever-flowing streams of living water that come from the Spirit of God. Those who accept the invitation become the vessel into which the water wells up and runs over, immersing them in God’s abundant life. Blessed indeed is everyone who has a hunger for God’s Word and a thirst for His righteousness, ‘for they shall be satisfied’ (Matthew 5:6).

The thirst for satisfaction

The need to find satisfaction is something that we all experience in different areas of our life. Mick Jagger couldn’t find any, but I don’t think he was looking in the right places! For everyone looking to be satisfied, there is a company or an organisation trying to fill that need. Once we try their product or service, they will often ask for a customer satisfaction survey to be completed. This will have a list of topics and an area of service within each one, from which we choose whether we have been: highly satisfied; satisfied; neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; dissatisfied; highly dissatisfied.

The questions in the survey could be for the helpfulness of staff or the cleanliness of a room, the wait time for an order or the overall level of service, etc. The problem with some surveys is the length of them, and halfway through we end up just ticking the middle option randomly in order to get it finished. The truth is, we mostly vote with our feet. When we find a shop, restaurant or hotel that ticks the right boxes, a place that satisfies our needs, we will keep going back.

We have so many different kinds of needs on a purely physical level. We need food, water, rest, company, activity, sleep, security, belonging, warmth, love, friendship and much more. If you had to fill in a survey for this list, how would it look? Are you highly satisfied in each of these areas? On top of the physical we also have deep spiritual needs that require attention, although sometimes we don’t even recognise that the thing we long for is in fact spiritual satisfaction.

When we come to God, it is often our wants that we bring to His attention first: ‘I want to see this particular thing happen, I want to go to this particular place, I want to do this particular thing…’ which may all be good, but through continual reading of God’s Word we begin to recognise our true needs, and all those ‘wants’ condense down to just one: ‘Lord, I want to live according to Your ways.’ ‘Blessed are you,’ says the Lord, ‘for in this you will truly be satisfied.’ Philippians 4:19 says, ‘God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus’, and what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:6 is that He will supply every spiritual thirst that we have, according to the eternal riches of God.

One of my favourite movie quotes emphasises the point that people are looking for genuine leaders, but if those leaders can’t be found they’ll listen to whoever steps up to speak. This search for leadership is like a deep thirst, and when it can’t be quenched, people are willing to drink the sand because, ultimately, they can’t tell the difference.[7]

Jesus travelled through a ‘dry and weary land’ (Psalm 63:1) in which the people were, in effect, drinking the sand. This is still true in society today. People crave leadership and direction; they thirst for someone or something to follow, and in the absence of real leadership they will listen to anyone who steps forward with the offer of fulfilment. Jesus is the only one who can fulfil our needs, the only one who can quench our thirst and the only one who can satisfy the deep longings of our soul. Looking for satisfaction anywhere other than through Jesus will ultimately result in disappointment. He alone is the pure source of abundant life; a well we can drink from that never runs dry.

Setting us free

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
(John 8:36)

Jesus would often be found speaking in the temple from early morning; knowing this, the Pharisees came on one particular morning to purposely disrupt His teaching. With callous disregard to the woman in their grip, they dragged her to the temple, amplifying her humiliation, and dropped her at the feet of Jesus. In exposing her shame of adultery to everyone present, their not-so-subtle approach was just another test by the religious leaders to discredit Jesus. Unfortunately for them, all they managed to do was expose their own ignorance and arrogance. The accusers left defeated in their cause, and the woman was set free from condemnation.[8] We don’t know what happened next in this woman’s life, but if she heeded the Lord’s instruction and turned completely from her sin, she would have experienced true freedom.

As Jesus continued to teach, He spoke to the people about the darkness of their sin and the fact that they were lost in it. He longed for them to realise the gravity of their situation and that their future depended on their response. No one needed to remain lost because the light was before them, leading them out of the dark. John 8:30 tells us, ‘As he was saying these things, many believed in him.’ Jesus knew that, with some, this belief was tenuous at best, so He said to them:

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
(John 8:31-32)

This confused the people because, as far as they were concerned, they had never been enslaved to anyone. For them, it would have made no sense for Jesus to say they would be set free. Set free from what exactly? Jesus pointed out their slavery to sin and invited them to visualise a house with a master, a son and a slave. They knew the definition of a slave – one who is completely subject to another, without the means of freeing oneself. Within the master’s house, a son would have all the privileges and freedom while the slave would have none. The son would receive the inheritance while the slave would only inherit a new master.

Just as Jesus wanted to free the people back then, He still wants to free people here and now. He offers freedom from unseen chains and the privilege of being changed from slaves to sons and daughters of God. The inheritance of God’s kingdom was and is available to all who accept Jesus at His word and believe the truth of His gospel. Knowing the truth and being set free is a promise to every one of us when we follow Him, remain in Him and stay within His teaching.

God’s Word does not merely illuminate truth, it is truth, and that truth brings a freedom that most of us have not fully embraced. This concept of living free is hard for people to understand because, just like the Jewish people in John 8, most do not see themselves as being enslaved to anyone or anything. In his opening sentence of The Social Contract, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, ‘Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.’[9] Rousseau may have been ahead of the curve in seeing the slavery of mankind, but he misunderstood his freedom. In contrast, the truth that Jesus was explaining was that we were not born free but born captive, and ‘everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin’ (John 8:34). From the very beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and continuing today, the devil twists God’s truth to cause doubt in our minds. As soon as we think that we have nothing to be freed from, the deception grows.

The devil delights in deceiving the Christian most of all. When we become aware of our sin, the devil switches tactics so that we don’t forget about it. He moves from the deception regarding sin to the deception regarding forgiveness. He manages to keep past sin in our thoughts in order to encourage continued guilt, and he plays on our self-doubts. He tells us we are not good enough. He whispers at the prayer meeting, ‘Don’t pray out loud, you’ll only make a fool of yourself.’ When we sit in study group we hear that niggling voice say, ‘Just stay quiet, you’re not at the same level as everyone else.’ It is so easy for the devil to be convincing because we so often feel the weight of our own inadequacies, but it is all lies.

Just like the woman who was caught in her sin and who, after her accusers left, was set free from condemnation, we too can experience true freedom. Freedom from lies, freedom from accusations, freedom from guilt and freedom from slavery. Slavery? Yes, slavery.

We are slaves to anything that has a hold on our life, be it gambling, alcohol, drugs, along with other things that we might laugh off or dismiss, like food, shopping, laziness, jealousy and gossiping. There are so many things that the devil uses to enslave us, and from which Jesus longs to set us free. Do not hold on to the things for which Jesus spilled His blood. His death bought our freedom. He bowed to the will of the Father, enduring scorn, humiliation, mutilation and anguish, and then He went down to the depths of Death and Hades so that we might be released from its grasp.[10] He did absolutely everything that was required of Him to ensure our freedom. Then, having felt abandoned under the weight and darkness of our sin, He emerged victorious and was lifted to the place of supremacy, at the right hand of the Father.

Why was the teacher needed? He was needed then for the same reasons that He is needed today. Scales still need to be removed from blind eyes; burdens still need to be lifted from weary shoulders; the thirst of the soul still needs to be quenched and the slave of sin still needs to be set free. So don’t let the ‘father of lies’ (John 8:44) blind you, burden you, rob you or deceive you. Make a habit of reading God’s Word on a continual basis and let the truth of it set you free.

Reflections

Questions

• Think back to a time when you thought about something differently from those around you. Did you have the confidence to express your opinion, or did you allow yourself to get carried along with the crowd? Did that changed things for you going forward?
• When it comes to stepping out of the busyness of life, what kind of ‘restful’ activity do you find beneficial, and how often do Jesus and/or spiritual things play a part in any of that?
• What kinds of burdens are you still carrying that you wish you could simply hand over to Jesus?

Practical application

Note down any areas of your life in which you feel the enemy is still holding you captive. Consider what it is you need in order to move forward in the freedom that Jesus offers and then ask God to help you in each of the areas you have written down. Keep a note of your progress. It could also help to speak to a trusted leader about these things.

Prayer

Lord, I want to understand all that Your Word teaches. Please help me to see Your truth clearly and to never be afraid to speak it out. Help me to hand over all the things that weigh on my mind and which stop me resting fully in You. Show me how to live in Your freedom and give me a continual thirst to know You more. Amen.

[1] Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:6-7.

[2] See Psalm 23:4.

[3] 2 Corinthians 2:14-15.

[4] John 7:50-51.

[5] John 19:38-42.

[6] John 21:15-17.

[7] The American President (1995). Directed by Rob Reiner, distributed by Columbia Pictures.

[8] John 8:2-11.

[9] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique (1762). See also The Social Contract, Book 1, Chapter 1, www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/socialcontract/full-text/book-i-chapter-i (accessed 4th July 2024)

[10] Revelation 1:18; see also 1 Peter 3:18-19.