ACTS 1:6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
This is revealing question as it uncovers the disciples true motivation to follow Jesus. All along the disciples were anticipating that Jesus would somehow transform into a political or military leader and overthrow the Roman occupation and rightly restore the government of Israel back to the people of Israel and their God. You have to realize that this entire generation of Israelites were a people who did not know life apart from being under the rule of a foreign empire. It would be like if in the 1940 America lost the war with Germany and the German government took over and then you were born. You would have learned from your grandparents that there was a time when we were free to worship our God and did not have to be forced into the German way of doing things etc. Culturally we would be steeped in the search for the "one" who would come and free us from the oppressors.
So the disciples anticipated that Jesus was that "One" and the Scriptures foretold of the time when the Messiah would carry the government upon His shoulders. In fact we are still awaiting that to occur since it will happen when Jesus comes back to vanquish the oppressor of mankind, Satan not the Germans or the Romans.
APPLICATION
I need to be mindful of the big picture of what God is doing, and not be distracted by the minutiae of my little world.
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