22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized (Luke 3:22)
The First Priority is to Be With Him.
The first thing we learn about Jesus from the above passage is His desire to be with His disciples. The Greek phrase that is translated as “spent some time with them” (Verse 22), means “to rub hard” or “rub through.” The thought is of close intimate fellowship where they rubbed shoulders with Him. The gospel writer Mark also mentions this desire of Jesus to be with His people. He writes, “He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with Him and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14 emphasis mine). His intent was to win their hearts through close intimate fellowship and impart His character to them. Through simply living life with Jesus, He “rubbed off” on them. What a privilege they had, to walk and talk with Jesus here on earth! Have you ever thought of what that must have been like? Today, Jesus would invite us to do the same. The more time you spend drawing near to Christ in reading the Word of God and through prayer, the more His character can “rub off” on you! One can affect a person from a distance, but if you want to impact and bring about change in someone’s life, it has to be through close relationship. Jesus said, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well (John 14:7). How encouraging to know that God loves to just be with His people, and to spend time with them. In fact, when you look at all four gospels, one cannot escape the conclusion that there were two main missions for Christ while He was on Earth. 1) To satisfy the Father by paying the price for the sin of mankind through death on the cross. 2) To create a Small Group of men to whom He could model what it was to live life to the fullest on Earth, and send them forth with His message of salvation through what He had accomplished. Now that is a good priority for us to uphold!
