Worth His Keep

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

WORTH HIS KEEP

Matt 10:5-10

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 9 Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; 10 take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.

NIV

There are more instructions that Jesus gave these twelve and it is a good thing the instructions were just for the twelve. Well, maybe they are not because if they were then there would be no reason to include this in the canon. If all scripture is God-breathed and it is useful or profitable for teaching, thus being taught, rebuking, therefore we are rebuked of wrong behavior and thinking, correcting, and thus we stand corrected in our theology, or thinking, and training in righteousness, hence we are always in the middle of training so that we are fully equipped or thoroughly equipped for every work, then these words of Jesus are just as much for us as they were for them. We must learn something from them for our lives. Of course, there were to only go to the lost sheep of Israel, and we have are already well past those days and so could we take this to mean that we are simply to go to the lost sheep of God? Should be we going into the world we know, investing the gospel into the lives of the lost? We know that is true, and we know we should be telling people the kingdom of God is near. As to healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, driving out demons, we need to take a pause for a moment and consider if we should or could do all that. We do pray for the sick and we should be expecting them to be healed. If we do not expect a healing then why bother to pray for them. Well, let's leave this to ponder for a while, maybe we will come back to this sometime. The other interesting point Jesus told them was not to take any money with them, to simply head out doing the work of the Lord with the authority He gave them and the reason for not taking any money was because the worker was worth his keep. That is to say, if a person is doing the work of the Lord, preaching the good news, in essence, doing ministry, they are worthy of their keep, or are taken care of financially. In the church today, that is usually the case, most pastors are on salary, or compensated, or worthy of their keep. There are some who serve, but all too often are required to do so voluntarily, thus they may not be worthy of their keep, and maybe should consider they are not worthy to minister and simply walk away. Of course, the church cannot pay every person in the church, because we all are supposed to be doing the work of the Lord, but Jesus is specifically speaking about those twelve, as well as those who proclaim the kingdom of God is near, which in most cases are those called into the ministry of teaching and preaching. Nevertheless, the larger issue is that all of us who are children of God is worthy of our keep, and Jesus keeps us, He holds us in the palm of His hand, and no one can rip us from His keep. Because we are all born again, presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to God, He tells us we are worth our keep.