A Lack of Discipline

# 412 - Today's Living Word comes from Mr 6:32-34, “So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

The crowd saw Jesus and His disciples departing and they figured out that He was heading for a deserted place and so they took off on land in hot pursuit. They gathered more and more people as they went through the cities. The final total was 5,000 men plus women and children.

From Johns account of this event found in Jn 6:3-5, we are assured that Jesus and His disciples indeed did make it to their “deserted” place. He was able to spend a little time with His disciples at the top of a mountain and when the crowd arrived they appeared before Him from His vantage point on top of the mountain and then climbing the mountain, came together to Him.

Why was Jesus so moved by this crowd? What did HE see as their need? They were like sheep without a shepherd! Think about it. Jesus looks down from the mountain and sees this mass of humanity much like a huge flock of sheep and they have no leader!

They had come to Jesus literally running (v33) picking up people as they went through the cities and most of the people in this kind of mob mentality really don't know who or what they are chasing after. They just follow the crowd.

So what does He do? He began to teach them many things. He began to straighten them out! Honestly it seems we have the same kind of a problem today. People flock to what and who is fashionable. We flock to this teacher and that teacher, this book and that book, this program and that program, and what we really need is to be taught by the Master.

We too need to be straightened out! We need to be taught by the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God. We don't need teaching that justifies our unbiblical behavior, rather we need those truths of Scripture that seek to sanctify our behavior.

Don't believe me? Observe the majority of the sheep today. How many are practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor? How many are following the biblical guidelines for sexual purity?

Let's face it, for the most part, we are undisciplined....like sheep without a shepherd. But there is hope.

Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Come back to the Good Shepherd! Allow Him to take your iniquitous meanderings on Himself, and then seek to live according to His voice in the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.

I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.