Have you been a disciple or one of the crowd?

Luke 6:19

The crowd followed Jesus for His works, often craving what He could offer rather than who He was. After the healings and miracles it was possible to see people worshiping Him with greater vehemence.

It always leads me to think that I too am often the crowd. Who asks, begs and hopes for a miracle, but who only has that as a goal. We seek God many times for what He can do for us, and we forget to seek Him just because He is God, our Father.

The Master for the crowd was often an attraction.

The disciple seeks Jesus

“Many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’, Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ;Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.

John 6:66-68

The disciples who gave their lives to Jesus, unlike the crowd, left everything behind for Him. That is, while the crowd seeks miracles, the disciple seeks Jesus.

The apostles sought the Son’s teachings to be filled by the Father, not because that filling would bring miracles for Them. We must follow Jesus in this way, with Him being the end, not the means to something.

In several bible stories we see that Jesus walked away from the crowd to have a separate time teaching his disciples. As we can see in John 6:2-3: “And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples“.

The Son’s mission was to preach the Gospel and die for it. As for the disciples, it was to learn from the master so that they could continue what He had started. But the crowd often came to Christ with the wrong intention.

The hungry heart silences the crowd

“He called out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’. Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more…”.

Luke 18:38,39

The agglomeration tried to silence those who cried out for Jesus. The crowd also hindered the vision of those who sought the Father, as it is in Luke 19, as they were concerned with having a good view of the attraction that Jesus was for them.

I’m not generalizing. There were also people in the crowd who were really looking for Jesus, looking for his hand and his grace because he was God. And it is precisely these people who are later known in the stories as those who managed to approach Jesus.

Like the very man who cried out in Luke 18, Jesus heard him in the throng of people and brought him close, for He heard the man’s heart pleading, not his voice like that of all the other people gathered around him.

You will seek me and find me

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”.

Psalm 34:18

As much as the crowd sometimes interfered or tried to prevent the Lord from acting, this did not distance the disciples and people with a surrendered heart from Him. Those who really want the Father always reach Him. He himself said in Jeremiah 29:14, “I will be found by you”.

Don’t be like the crowd, who are so close to Jesus but who don’t touch Him, because they don’t seek Him with a surrendered soul. Even if situations try to shut you up, even if feelings seem like walls between you and the Lord, cry out even louder, call for Him from the heart.

The promise through searching in spirit and in truth with all the heart is that we will seek and find Him.