And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.
And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils (Mar 3:13).
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. On the first day He created Day and Night. Afterwards, He created the firmament, the earth, the sea, the fruit yielding trees, the sea creatures, and the living creatures upon the earth. And God saw that it was good. However, none of these creatures was in God’s likeness. None of them could have a relationship with God and therefore there was no one capable of fellowship with Him.
Therefore, in Genesis Chapter 1, verse 26, on the sixth day of creation, God said:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over the whole earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
The statement in the 26th verse above reveals to us the decision of Jehovah Elohim, the Creator of heaven and earth, to make man. God Almighty said: “Let us make man in our image.” He declared that man would be just like Him; man would be someone who could commune with God and be His companion; man would also be God’s delegated ruler of the entire creation. God declared that He would put all things under his feet, making him have dominion over the earth.
In the second and third Chapters of Genesis, we see that man came forth as God had planned and became the heir of creation. Man, the little darling of Deity, reigned in the Garden of Eden on the day of his birth. God put all things under his feet. He had a unique relationship with the Almighty, which no other creature could dream of because only he was made in God’s image. He had constant and continuous fellowship with the Almighty, the type which angels would have desired to look into.
God made man His companion and eternal associate: a position God had prepared for him since the foundation of the world. Man was not made to fill the place of a servant to a Master or of a domestic pet to an owner, but created to be a son and an heir of the eternal Father throughout eternity. Before man came, God had angels to minister to Him as servants but He wanted children, so He invested ages in the preparation of His man.
There are three principal objectives in the mind of God for making man that we must be cognizant of in this message. The first is relationship. In making man, God formed a special being in His own image. He gave birth to him. He formed man’s body out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. The real man, which is his spirit, came from God; his body came from the earth. Man, therefore, is related to God by birth and is in God’s class of being.
Though man fell from this original position because of Adam’s rebellion, God’s original destiny for him did not change. This original objective is what God is working on today in the Body of Christ. God is working to the end that man may totally become His son, a partaker of His very nature, so that he will be a genuine heir and joint-heir with Christ Jesus.
The second objective is fellowship. Man was created to be a companion to God for there was no being in the universe to commune with Him. God desired a family and man was the answer to this yearning. Man was created to meet this yearning of God’s heart for a family: a family of children in the likeness of the Father with whom He can fellowship.
As you know, you can only have true fellowship with your kind. Man can only have true fellowship with humankind and not with the animal kingdom. In the same manner, God can only have fellowship with man–whom He has made in His own likeness.
The third objective, which is as a result of the first two stated above, is to make man the absolute ruler of the whole of creation. Man was the crown of creation and destined to be God’s under-ruler of the earth. Being the child of the Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth, man has been delegated to rule the universe. Without doubt, man did exactly that while he was in fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden.
What is the essence of this message? It is this–that God has a purpose and a need for which He made us. Although Adam lost this original estate and dominion, God has brought about a restoration in Christ Jesus. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. We have been recreated in Christ Jesus and the original relationship has been restored.
Our new birth in Christ Jesus restores our relationship with God, brings us back to close fellowship with Him, and in due time will bring us to the complete dominion that God gave to man in the beginning.
Dear Saint, we must therefore understand this fact that God has a need for which He made man and for which He has re-created you and me in Christ Jesus. It is to satisfy His yearning for fellowship. True fellowship is the reason for which He made man, for He cannot find true fellowship with Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim because they are not like Him. He can only have fellowship with man who alone is in His image and can become His friend. Only man can have communion with Him as Adam did in the beginning.
God made man in His likeness that in man He might find a resting place for Himself, a Tabernacle for Him to dwell in, and God will not be satisfied until that resting place is perfected and until He has drawn man back to Himself and has made His eternal habitation in the human heart. On the other hand, man was also made to have rest in God and will never find true rest until he returns to his Maker.
I believe God is going to have a generation, in these last days, that will abide in true fellowship with Him–a generation that will find true rest in God; a people that will sit at His feet and hear His words.
In the opening Scriptural passage quoted above from the book of Mark Chapter 3, the Lord Jesus went up a mountain and selected twelve out of His followers. He ordained these as His disciples.
Let’s pause and peruse this passage for a while. We must ask a question here: What was the purpose for which the Lord Jesus ordained these twelve? Why did He choose them?
The Scripture tells us that He chose these twelve—that they might be with Him, and that he might send them out.
The Lord ordained the twelve, first: that they might be with Him; and second: that He might send them out to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, to heal the sick, and to cast out evil spirits. For how shall they preach unless they have been with Him; how shall they truly relate Christ to others unless they know Him personally? He chose them as disciples and turned them into Apostles.
The Lord Jesus chose these twelve and made them His friends with whom He had communion. He said to them:
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you (John 15:13 –16).
He said to them: I am not going to call you servants, for a servant knows not what his master is doing, but I am going to call you friends. He chose them to fellowship with Him and by the virtue of this fellowship He transformed them into Apostles. As a result of this association with Him, they received His power and were able to go out to preach, to heal, and to cast out devils in His Name. Yes! They came back rejoicing that the devils were subject to them in His Name, for Satan was seen falling down like lightning from heaven.
In the same manner, dear Saint, the Spirit of God is telling us that if we become God’s friends and spend time close to His heart, fellowshipping with Him, we will be transformed by His divine presence and be imbued with His divine power to preach, to heal, and to exercise dominion over evil forces.
Just as God made the original man in His own likeness to be with Him and that He might send him out to have dominion over the earth, we have been recreated in Christ Jesus and chosen first “to be with Him,” and second that He might send us out to teach, to preach the gospel of the kingdom, and to exercise dominion over evil spirits. But first, we must be with Him; then we can go out to minister in the power of the Name of Jesus. We must yearn for His presence, sit at His feet, and learn His words.
O’ that He might call us His friends like He called Abraham. He had searched for generations among all nations of the world and finally He found a man in the Ur of the Chaldees. He found a friend in Abram, the son of Terah, and, finding him, He changed his name, made Him the father of many nations and called him His friend. O’ that God might call me His friend.
Let us know this for sure that God has redeemed us for Himself, that we might be with Him. It is all about the Father and His family. It is about the Father and His children and Jesus our Lord, the firstborn of this new creation. The principal objective and the first goal is not about working for Him; our service is not the first and closest thing to His heart for He has many servants, but communion with Him. “That they might be with Him,” He brought this new creation into being for His total delight. He desires that you and me would come close to His very heart; that we might be with Him and that He might pour Himself into us and send us out.
The Apostle Paul, by the Holy Ghost, wrote to us, saying: God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (1Co 1:9).
This is our heavenly calling. We have been called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ. In the same thread, John the beloved made this clear in his epistle when he wrote:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
My prayer this day is that God will find the desire of His heart in you and me–that He will call us His friends with whom He will commune and make known His mind–that we will make a quality decision to be His friend and in Him find true rest. I pray that the sincere cry of our hearts and our principal desire from this day on will be to become His friend and to be with Him, from now on and forever. Amen
In the previous sections above, we pointed out the Lord’s objectives in selecting these twelve disciples. First that He ordained them to be His companions and friends. He chose them, first and foremost, to be with Him and be in constant communion with Him. But that was not the entire purpose for which He chose them. The Scriptures tell us that He ordained them for a second reason—that He might send them out to teach, to preach the gospel of the kingdom, and to cast out devils.
What the Spirit is revealing to us here is important and we will do well if we take heed. Every action of our Lord Jesus Christ, while He was here on earth, revealed the Father. He was and is the Revealer of the Father. He did whatever He saw the Father do and every significant action that He took, like this one in Mark 3:13, was to unveil to those “that have eyes to see” the eternal purpose of God, purposed in Him before the foundation of the earth.
In this passage of Scripture from the Gospels of Mark, we are told that the Lord Jesus Christ, as His manner was, went up the mountain alone to pray. Though, as we know very well, the Lord was in continuous fellowship with God, He had specific time of communion which He set apart to be alone with God continually. Before the ordination of the twelve, He spent one of such hour communing with the Omniscient One. For the Lord Jesus only did the will of the Father. He had no will of His own but carried out the will of God, and prayer for Jesus was an avenue for making sure that the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven; Selah: (pause and think about this for a while).
After communing with the Father, He came down and chose twelve out of many that followed Him. The choice of the twelve was as ordained by God from the foundation of the world. It was according to the eternal plan and purpose of God. The Lord Jesus did not pick the twelve because they were His favorite or because they were the ones He knew He could work with. He chose according to the will and purpose of God, which was already predetermined from when the Great Designer was fashioning all things after the counsel of His will.
When He chose them, they were first His followers. They followed Him everywhere He went, sat with Him, ate with Him, stood with Him, walked with Him, talked to Him, watched His actions, marveled at His wisdom and might, and sat at His feet and learned His words. He chose them that “they might be with Him.” They heard Him teach the multitudes, in parables, the word of life and the message of the Kingdom. They followed Him while He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil and saw that God was indeed with Him. They had the unique privilege of asking Him and receiving the exposition of the parables that He taught the multitude because unto them, said He, is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
It was this great privilege of being with Him, hearing His words, learning His ways, and following His steps that turned them into His disciples.
I trust that the Holy Ghost is causing your inner eye to see and to follow the progression in this message. That the Lord Jesus, after communing with God the Father and according to the will and foreknowledge of God, chose twelve out of more than seventy followers to be with Him. They then, by associating with Him became His disciples. It was after this that He empowered them and sent them out to teach, to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, and to cast out devils.
Let’s take note that these twelve men were not chosen and sent out immediately. They were ordained to first be with Him and learn His ways; afterwards they became the “sent-out ones.”
If you are following, you must have understood that the Holy Ghost is herein saying that these twelve who later became “apostles,” the sent-out ones or one sent with a message, did not begin as apostles; they were first His followers, then were ordained by Christ according to the will of the Father to be His disciples, and finally became His apostles.
Today, the true Church of Jesus Christ must understand that it is in fellowship with Him that we will be transformed from being weaklings of society into spiritual giants that have power with God. It is in being with Him that we will be transformed into His likeness and be able to manifest the glory and grace of God as He did. It is after He has discipled us that He can commission us as His “sent-out ones.”
It is an indisputable fact that God, by divine appointment and according to His eternal purpose from the foundation of the earth, had chosen His apostles and prophets; but they do not become the sent-out ones until they have gone through His school and have become His disciples. They must have been with Christ in the school of prayer, of faith, of patience and of Love. Only then will He send them out with His message, ordaining them by Himself, for these ones are called, and chosen and faithful (Rev 17:14).
I understand that the church system in the world today has a different interpretation for how an apostle is made; but we shall leave this for some other time. Let it suffice to say that as far as the ministry of Christ goes, the mundane does not an apostle make; and neither this office nor the prophets, nor teachers, nor evangelists and pastors are by the will or selection of man but by the will, choice, and ordination of God, for “no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God” (Heb 5:4). For “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets,….” Let no man gull you, or should I say: don’t be gullible; for it is GOD that sets some in these five supernatural ministry offices in the Church and not man or committees of man. No wonder Apostle Paul emphatically stated that he was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and not any man. For you would agree with me that none of the eleven original apostles of the Lamb would have favorably considered Paul’s candidacy for apostleship, but God had chosen Him from the foundation of the world to be an apostle to us, the Gentiles, to reveal His Son in him.
Let’s get back to the core of this message. For I believe that the time has come for us to grow up and understand the ways of God. The time has come to stop following fables and traditions of men. The time of ignorance, God has overlooked but is calling us to repent and forsake our childish ways, to fall in line with Him, to find out for ourselves what His will and purpose is and to obstinately walk in His ways.
The main purpose of this chapter is to cause us to draw nigh unto our Master, to learn at His feet, and be His disciples indeed; and we are not going to stop at that; we are then going to be empowered by our association and fellowship with Him to go out and teach, preach the gospel of the Kingdom, and cast out devils.
This is also His desire. He chose and ordained us that we might be with Him and that He might send us out. His desire is that we would be so close to Him that we become intimately acquainted with and understand Him. He wants us to come to that place where we clearly know His voice in the midst of the voices of many strangers. Only by abiding with Him and listening to His voice continually do we come to know the voice of Christ as distinct from other voices. It is a spiritual understanding which cannot be mistaken if we live in contact with Him.
He said, “My sheep know My voice.” It is a spiritual thing. He does not necessarily speak in audible tones, for He seldom does, but with an inner voice that speaks to the hidden man of the heart. And as we develop the ability to hear Him by sitting at His feet and learning His word, we’ll become proficient and skillful in recognizing His voice.
If we set ourselves apart continually (I mean continually: recurring regularly; not necessarily continuously) in prayer and fasting to seek His face, we will become proficient in hearing His voice in our spirit within. Fasting cleanses the body and helps the spirit to be strong at the expense of the flesh. Prayer and fasting has the effect of liberating us from the grip of the flesh and all the things that belong to it so that our spirit is free to commune with God without distraction. Prayer and fasting loosens us from the power of the flesh–its passions, cravings, and desires that stand in the way of growth of the spiritual man.
Don’t worry about the other voices; the more you live in communion with Christ, the more obvious will be the voice of strangers. But understand this, dear saint, that no one can explain this inner voice of God and revelation knowledge to you; you must experience it for yourself.
Therefore labor to enter into this realm. Give whatever it takes in prayer, in worship, in fasting and in meditating on His word. Learn to listen to the voice of Christ and by listening you will discern the voice of the Good Shepherd. Give all your attention to His voice over and above the clamoring voices of men. Listen quietly to the still, small voice that can only be heard when all other voices are stilled and when personal ambitions are swept out from your heart. Prayer and fasting really helps; for during fasting the soul is hushed, the spirit stilled, the ceaseless cravings of the body are subdued, and the voice of the Good Shepherd is heard speaking in His living Tabernacle, which is your inner man, revealing His truth, manifesting His will, and transforming the spirit into the image of Him that created him.
Let us therefore, holy brethren and partakers of the heavenly calling, sit at Christ’s feet and learn His ways. And this we know for sure, that we all, with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co 3:18).