Do You Want To Be His Disciple?

In Luke 9:23 Jesus makes the following statement: "Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me." "Whoever wants to be My disciple..." And here we find the crux of the matter for most Christians. It is easy to be a Christian, I mean really all you have to do is follow Romans 10:9 - 10 and you are born again. Don't get me wrong, that is a very important thing indeed, without that everything else is pointless. But the decision to follow Christ is where the rubber meets the road.

When Jesus says "whoever wants to be" that leaves the decision in our hands. He doesn't force us to become His disciples. Remember when He called the twelve? He didn't walk up to Peter and say, "Hey you! I'm the Messiah, stop what you're doing and come be my follower." He simply said, "Follow me." Peter still had to decide to leave what he was doing and follow Jesus.

I have been a Christian now for twenty-four years, but I can probably say that I've actually been a disciple for the last five or so. Part of being a disciple is "denying yourself", and that is what I think for me has been probably the hardest thing. I still fight wanting to do what I want to do a lot. And it's not that I don't love Jesus, I do, I just wrestle with my flesh still. Although I am a little better at putting it in its place now than back when I first became a Christian.

Not everyone chooses to follow Jesus. Remember the story of the man that told Jesus to let him go bury his father first and then he would follow Him? Jesus's reply was to let the dead bury the dead, but for him to go and preach the Kingdom of God. (Luke 9:59 - 60) Unlike Peter, who left his nets and followed Jesus, this man had other things on his mind to do first. This person remains unnamed, while Peter goes on to be one of the Apostles. Could there be a connection here?

We are told that to be disciples we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him. Three things that are the deciding factors as to whether or not we are His disciples. Following Jesus requires the ability to lay aside our desires, our wants and our way of doing things. But how do you know what to do in following Jesus? Where do you find that? In the Bible, and hearing His voice.

When you read through the Bible, you will see the things that are important to Jesus. And if we are His disciples, then the things that are important to Him should be important to us as well. If we see Him showing kindness to all, then we should show kindness to all. If He is ministering to people where they need it, then we too should be looking for opportunities to do the same. The Bible is full of things that we as disciples of Jesus should be doing, if we will only look for them.

We should also be led by the Spirit of God in our own spirits too. This requires getting quiet and listening in our spirits for Him to speak to us. We should also bear in mind that whatever He speaks to our spirits will never go against what He has written in the Bible. That is the standard by which we judge what is right and true. If you think the Spirit of God is speaking to you to do something and it goes against Scripture, then it is not right and you shouldn't follow it. This is why it is so important to read your Bible daily, this will keep you from doing something flaky.

Being a disciple of Jesus is a conscious effort on our part, but one that will cause us to have untold joy and satisfaction in our lives, if we will do the three things; deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him. Let's determine to do that today, how about it? Get 'em up folks, we've gotta go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!

The Responsibility Belongs To Us, The Individual Believer

This morning I was reading in Ephesians 4:1-16 and the Holy Spirit did that "highlighting" thing again. I saw in verse 1 that Paul assumes that we each have a calling that is given to us by Jesus, the gift is found in verse 8. What that is specifically you need to take time with the Father and find out, it will be different for each of us.

Paul then goes on to tell us that we need to be completely humble and gentle; to be patient, bearing with one another in love. Or in David's vernacular, "using love, put up with one another". He then goes on to tell the disciples (us) to make every effort to stay in the unity through the bond of peace. Now what I really find interesting about this point is that he tells "us" not them to make every effort. That tells me that it will be opposed, but that I need to be the one to make the attempt, and stop waiting on others.

How often do we see people that perhaps drain us emotionally, or just kind of get under our skin? I know that it happens to me, so it must happen to you as well, if you will actually admit it. My first thoughts are usually to go the other way, try not to make eye contact, or if I do end up having a conversation with this person, I try to minimize it as much as possible. That's not what I see that Paul is telling me to do here. I need to make the effort to keep the peace, and to make the other person feel good about themselves.

In verse 11 Paul talks about the five-fold ministry gifts; the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. These five gifts were given to the body of Christ so that it (the body of Christ) might be built up and reach the unity in the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God. To become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Basically what that means is that these five gifts to the body are there to help the body grow.

They are not to grow the body, what I mean is that it is not the job of the five-fold ministry to be the only people that are witnessing about the Lord Jesus Christ and making disciples. They should do that on a personal level yes, but as a part of the five-fold gifting that God has given us they are to help us (the body of Christ) to grow into what we are supposed to be doing; leading people to the Lord and making disciples.

What I've seen for too long is church members trying to get people to come to church in the hopes that when they come, the pastor or one of the other staff members can lead them to the Lord. I don't discount the fact that we should be inviting people to church, or that we shouldn't have altar calls at our church services, but that is not the main way that people come to know Jesus.

Jesus told us to go and make disciples. A lot of people will say, yes Jesus did say that, but He was telling the apostles to go and do that. And that is where the enemy has had us as believers for years. Letting us think that it was the job of the church staff to take care of this and not ours. We are called sheep and the pastors are called shepherds, sheep recreate sheep, not shepherds. What shepherds do is protect the sheep from wolves and make sure that they are fed and taken care of, sounds a little bit like what the five-fold ministry is for huh?

So I submit to you the reader, that if we are not seeing our church families grow then perhaps we need to take a look at ourselves instead of our leadership, and ask ourselves if we are in fact doing everything that we can to make disciples. Are we forming relationships and using the gift that God has placed inside of us to win the lost? If your answer is no, then maybe it's time for you to start. And if you don't know how, then ask the leadership at your church, and hey here's a novel idea, why don't we ask God? After all I'm pretty sure He knows what to do.

Well there's that folks, get 'em up, let's go whip something for the Kingdom today!

What Is God Showing You?

I read this book called Real-Life Discipleship the other day, and it sparked my thinking about some things that we as Christians do in our walk with the Lord. One of the main things I wondered about is how much do people in my church study the Scriptures for themselves. We are told to "study to show ourselves approved" (2 Timothy 2:15) but I wonder just how many of us do that?

I have been amazed over the years at the people that I have known, that seem to be standing still in their Christian walk. I'm not judging them, I just wonder how it is that they think some of the things that they do, and actually do some of the things that they do. And understand me, I'm not perfect, not by a long shot, but I am concerned about why people don't seem to grow in following the Lord.

I think one of the reasons that so many people struggle is because they are not searching out the Scriptures for themselves. Oh, they go to church, maybe even on Sundays and Wednesdays, but never seem to grow much past their initial salvation experience. The one thing that I have learned is that if I wait for the pastoral staff at the church to teach me everything that I need to know about God and His Kingdom, I'm not going to grow very much. This is not to say that my pastoral staff isn't a good one, not at all they're the tops, but I can't just expect them to be the only way that I can learn from God.

After all God is about relationships, He wants to have a personal relationship with each and every one of us, and in that we will learn from Him. He longs to show us things, and teach us, if we'll let Him. And yes, that does come from a corporate church setting too, it's just not the only way that He teaches us. I mean who would you rather learn from, the man or woman who is an instructor or the person who created you and everything around you?

When I worked in Children's Church, it always amazed me the parents who would bring their kids to us on Sunday mornings and wanted us to turn them into spiritual giants. Never mind that the parents never prayed with their kids, or taught them Bible stories. They just thought their kids would get it by osmosis I guess. These types of parents are also the ones who think that their kids will learn everything at school, because after all isn't that the teachers job?

We have to study on our own, and besides if we have the Holy Spirit who Jesus said would teach us all things, then there is an untapped resource that many people are not using. I for one would hate to stand before God one day and have to answer for what I learned about His Kingdom and say, "Well I went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays the Pastor just didn't teach me everything." I don't think that will go over very well with God, do you?

So crack open your Bible and begin to read it. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you things, believing that He will and before long you will be learning all about God's Kingdom. The really cool thing is when God has been showing you things out of the Bible and you go to church and the Pastor is talking about the things that God has already showed you, that's pretty awesome!

So crack the book, and let's learn about God from God too...Shalom!