Just Because: The Story of Salvation for Children (18 page)

and the demon came out of him without hurting him.

Everyone could see he was cured, and they were all

amazed. They had never seen a person who had the

power to command demons to obey Him.

So the news about Jesus spread, and people heard

about Him everywhere. That night lots of people

who were sick in that town came to Him, and He

healed them. There were people with broken legs and

people who were blind; people who were deaf and

people who were crippled. He healed the lot. Every

single one. Some people had demons living in them,

and these came out of the people screaming, “You

are the Son of God!”

So Jesus had begun His work. The people still

didn’t understand exactly who He was, but Satan and

his buddies were now certain. Satan had decided he

must kill Jesus somehow; he must kill Him before

He crushed his head. He had tried to tempt Him, but

God had simply used it as a test. God never tempts

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people, and Satan never tests people. It is always

the opposite, Just Because God tests people to make

them more like Him, and Satan tempts people to try

to destroy them.

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Jesus calls all people to follow Him and be His

disciples. The first twelve guys became the first

leaders of the church, though, and some of them

helped to write the new part of the Bible. Now you

might think Jesus would choose guys who had been

to university or who were the top in their class, but

He didn’t. Jesus chose ordinary guys with ordinary

jobs to be His first disciples. Maybe this was because

ordinary guys can talk easily to ordinary people, so

Jesus wanted disciples who knew how to talk to ordi-

nary people about Him.

One day when Jesus was teaching the people

beside a lake, He saw some guys He wanted to call

as His disciples. They were fishermen. He asked

them if He could stand in their boat because such

a big crowd had gathered there and He couldn’t see

over their heads to speak to them. So they let Him

stand in the boat, and they rowed out a bit. Now it

wasn’t a beach with big waves or anything, just a

nice calm lake. When He had finished speaking He

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told the fisherman to go out to the deep water and put

down their nets to catch some fish. Now these guys

were expert fishermen, and Jesus was a carpenter.

Anyway, it was the middle of the day, and all expert

fishermen knew you could only catch fish near the

shore in the daytime.

As well as all of that, these fishermen were pretty

tired. I mean these guys were ready for bed. They

had been out fishing all night. They’d been rowing

all night and putting their nets down in the water

and dragging them in and hadn’t caught any fish,

not even one. They didn’t feel like starting fishing

all over again. Now the boss fisherman was a rough

guy called Simon. This was the man whose name

Jesus would later change to Peter. He had seen Jesus

before, and in fact Jesus had healed his wife’s mother.

He knew Jesus wasn’t just some ordinary guy so he

agreed to go out fishing.

They went out to the middle of the lake, and then

Jesus told them to put down their nets. The other

guys in the boat looked at Simon and were probably

thinking, “There are no fish here at this time of day;

this is a waste of time.” Simon just grabbed the net

and threw it in.

“Do as He says,” he ordered the fishermen.

Suddenly the water started to sparkle strangely,

and there were fish everywhere. The nets became full

and were starting to break from all the fish. They had

to call the other boats to come and help them. After

a lot of pulling and sweating they had the nets on

board, and the two boats were full of big, fat, wrig-

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gling fish. There were so many that they were scared

their boats were going to sink.

They all knew this was a miracle. They knew

Jesus had done this. Simon felt strange inside. He

knew that here in his boat was the Holy One of God,

and being near Jesus made him see his sin.

He fell down in front of Jesus, saying, “Go away

from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

But Jesus told him and the others, “Don’t be

afraid. From now on you will catch men for God.

Come follow Me and be My disciple.”

So they left everything—their boats, their fami-

lies, the fish—and they went with Jesus. They knew

they would have nowhere to sleep; they didn’t

know how they were going to get money to eat; but

somehow in their hearts they knew God would give

them everything they needed because He can even

fill the boats with fish. And so they became Jesus’

disciples, and He began to teach them everything

they needed to know.

Jesus called all sorts of people to be His disciples.

One day they met a rich young ruler guy. He wasn’t a

bad person, and he came and asked Jesus a question,

but this person had a problem.

“Master,” he said, “what good thing do I have to

do to be saved?”

Now I think this was the wrong question to be

asking Jesus. This guy thought that if he did good

things he would be saved. Doing good things is

really great, and the Lord wants us to be good. But

we should do good because we love the Lord and our

families, not because we think we can get to heaven

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by being good. No one can get to heaven that way. So

Jesus decided to see how serious he really was and to

help him see his problem.

“Obey God’s commandments,” replied Jesus.

“Which ones?” the rich young ruler guy asked.

“Do not murder, do not steal, honour your

parents, don’t marry another person’s wife and love

your neighbour as yourself,” Jesus told him.

“I have always done these things,” he said, “ever

since I was a boy.”

Now he wasn’t a proud young man; when he

came to Jesus he kneeled in front of the Lord. He

simply said he had kept all of these commandments.

Had he kept them? Sure. Maybe he had never stolen

anything because he wasn’t tempted to steal since he

had everything he needed and wanted. He had never

killed anyone, and he had been a good boy also, and

all of these were very good things. But had he
really

loved other people the same as he loved himself? The

word “love” Jesus said meant to care about people,

not to want them as your boyfriend or girlfriend or

something like that.

“Then sell all you have and give the money to the

poor, and you will have treasure in heaven,” Jesus

challenged him.

If this guy had cared about people as much as he

cared about himself, he would have given poor people

lots of his money and helped them. But he hadn’t

done that. Jesus wanted him to see his problem by

explaining what loving his neighbour really meant.

The rich young ruler thought about what Jesus

said, and finally he went away very sad. “No way,”

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he thought. “Sell everything? I’d have to work. I’d

be poor myself. What would I eat? I wouldn’t have

the best house or the best clothes or the best food; in

fact I would be just like everyone else.” This young

man made a wrong decision that day, and he climbed

back into his beautiful carriage and drove away.

Jesus knew what he was thinking as he left, and

He turned to His disciples and said to them, “What

good would it do for a man if he owned the entire

world but lost his soul and never saw the kingdom

of heaven? You see the flowers. They are more beau-

tiful than the finest clothes. And the birds that fly

about in the air—they don’t have huge houses full of

food. They trust their heavenly Father to feed them.

So then don’t spend all your life chasing after money

and nice clothes and other things you want. Instead

seek God and the things that last forever, and God

will give you what you need anyway.”

The disciples knew what He meant. They

had seen all the fish, they had seen Him do many

amazing things, and they were learning to trust

God. The rich young ruler loved his money, and

loving money is not a good thing. Money isn’t bad;

but when we start loving it, then we start living

only for money and not for the Lord. God wants us

to trust Him through our lives. It doesn’t mean we

cannot have money. It means that if we start to love

it more than loving the Lord we may become like

the rich young ruler and not like the fishermen who

became disciples. Those fishermen never became

guys with heaps of money. But they had a joy inside

that money could not buy, and they had treasure in

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heaven, Just Because they were ordinary guys who

trusted God in an amazing way, and that’s what He

wants from us.

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One day some of John’s friends came to Jesus and

told Him John was dead. King Herod was an

evil man, and John had preached that Herod must stop

sinning. Herod didn’t like what John said, so he had

John thrown into prison, into a dark place below his

castle. Later John was kil ed because evil people with

power couldn’t stop him from preaching the truth.

When Jesus and His disciples heard about John

they were very sad. They climbed into a little boat

and decided to go across to the other side of the lake

to a quiet place. They wanted to get away from the

big crowds of people and have a little break. But

when they arrived at the other side of the lake more

than ten thousand people were waiting for them. In

the crowd were hundreds of sick people—people

who couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear and

couldn’t walk. Jesus could have gone away and had

a little holiday, but He didn’t. The Bible says He felt

compassion for them, and that means He wanted to

help them more than anything. So He didn’t think of

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Himself. He just got out of that boat and started to

heal everyone.

Soon people were jumping for joy. A man who

had been born blind was running from one person to

another, shouting, “I can see you! I can see you!” He

was pointing to the sky and the trees and the lake and

calling out, “Praise the Lord! Thank You, Lord!” A

little girl who had been born deaf was saying, “I can

hear you, Mummy. Jesus made my ears better, and I

can hear everything.” The mother was crying with

tears of joy, and people were singing a beautiful song

of praise to God.

Jesus walked through that big group of thou-

sands and healed every person. It was wonderful

to see the crippled man jumping for joy, clapping

his hands and dancing with his wife. Demons came

out of people, and people who were dying suddenly

became wel . Everywhere people were so excited,

and people were laughing, singing and praying. It

was like heaven on earth.

Many people were saying, “This is our Messiah.

This is the king of Israel. He can do anything.”

“We should make Him our king!” one man yel ed.

“Yes, yes, He can easily destroy the Romans, and

Jerusalem will become the capital of the world, with

Jesus as our king.”

“Nothing can stop us now. Jesus’ power can do

anything.”

Then they started shouting, “Jesus is our king!

Jesus is our king!” They grabbed Jesus and tried to

lift Him onto their shoulders. They tried to make

Him become their king, to force Him to do it. Satan

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was there also, and he was most likely whispering

his evil.

“Make yourself a king, Jesus. Be the people’s

hero. Do something for yourself just this once. You

can make your own decisions, can’t you?”

Satan wanted Jesus to do just one thing that was

not His Father’s plan. Satan wanted Jesus to make

Himself a king, instead of His Father being king.

Satan wanted Jesus to do what
he
did so Jesus would

then be a sinner, because then Jesus would be under

Satan’s control.

Suddenly Jesus spoke, and the people stopped.

“Leave Me,” He commanded.

He sent the people away, and they did not argue

because He was speaking very firmly to them. Now

Jesus had one disciple called Judas, and he really

wanted Jesus to be a human king. I think perhaps

Judas wanted to be the prime minister of Jesus’ new

government or something. But Judas didn’t want the

same things as Jesus, and also he was a thief.

As Jesus was sending the people away, Judas said,

“Master, this is a great opportunity. These people are

ready to follow You to Jerusalem. Make yourself