Under command of the King

…and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

Luke 9:2

Disciples center on the call to make the healing kingdom of Christ known. This was what Jesus equipped the twelve apostles to do in His name, by His authority, for His glory! And for a season during His earthly ministry they went out in teams of two and saturated the towns and villages in the Judean countryside with the good news of the rule of King Jesus.

We are called to do the same. In fact, the ninth chapter of Luke is bookended with this call to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus uses the occasion of several discipleship conversations with unnamed followers to make this call to proclaim Him as King and to preach His kingdom quite clear as the expectation for all disciples. He calls disciples who wish to follow Him to “go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). 

This is the highest priority in a disciple’s life, alongside our need for shelter, our obligation to care for family and loved ones, and our maintenance of loving relationships. Disciples live in Christ’s kingdom, for His Kingdom, by His kingly rule, to make the rule and authority of Jesus over all and in all known to a world captured in the control of sin, shame, and Satan. Jesus heals from all the damage the insidious, inferior kingdom does to us. And it is precisely the rule of Jesus in us and made known by us that puts us at odds with a world under this evil and inferior rule! But Christ’s kingdom crushes all others. In that we can be confident! And so we follow, proclaiming the rule of Jesus in what we say and we do, under command of our King.