“When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”
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The Lord Has Need of It
by Philip Asselin
Luke 19:29-31, ESV
As I read these verses ahead of Easter, I found myself thinking how strange they were. Jesus asks for a donkey to be obtained for Him so that He could ride into Jerusalem and fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah written approximately five hundred years earlier. I understand that bit, but He specifically asks for the colt of a donkey and one that had never been ridden.
A mature donkey I can understand, as Jesus would want a smooth journey. Yet He chooses an animal that was so young it had never been ridden, and would normally be expected to buck around doing everything to throw off its rider. Add to this the crowds shouting and waving palm branches around the animal, and it would surely be a recipe for disaster. Yet the young donkey behaves perfectly for the task it was chosen.
What struck me is how God so often chooses the ones who seem, at first glance, unsuited to the task in hand. The Bible is full of such people. How many of us, when faced with God’s call on their lives to serve Him in a particular way, (even, perhaps, writing ‘Seeds of the Kingdom’) have felt they were not worthy, capable, clever enough, or godly enough. The good news is this means you have ticked the first box. It’s not going to be all about you!
God knows what we can do for Him, and knows this far better than we do. His call on our lives is to fulfill His purposes. Who would have chosen a bunch of very ordinary people to be His disciples? - a tax collector, a group of ordinary fishermen, and a zealot (a group often involved in anarchy). If you were advertising for the position of one of the twelve original disciples of Jesus, who were to be tasked with representing Him to the world and turning the world upside down, wouldn’t you have just taken their CVs and binned them? I would have! Yet Jesus used them mightily.
I think it comes down to this. Whomever Jesus calls, He equips for the task. Just as the donkey did, we need to submit our will to His, and know that whatever is out there (and things could be scary, as they probably were to the donkey) with Jesus on board (literally for the donkey), we have nothing to fear. What is Jesus calling you to do today?
Philip Asselin Philip is on the associate ministry and teaching teams with Glyndley Manor. He and his wife Gillian attended the second Healing Retreat at Glyndley Manor in 1992, and were greatly helped. They have two grown up children, one grandson, and a step-granddaughter in California, and a daughter and granddaughter in Eastbourne. His desire is to see people healed and set free to serve God.
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