[The current topic relates back to a previous post I made a long time ago.]


What would it take to make your spiritual life your number one priority?


For many of us, the question is almost offensive. I've even heard it asked, "How would your life look differently if you really began to obey God's word and live it out as though it were true?"


The question may be offensive, but it is one we must daily ask ourselves if we want to take Jesus' words seriously.  For real...what's your #1?  Do you seek Christ, knowing Him, honoring Him, knowing His will and doing it above everything else?  Do it and you'll find that everything else suddenly comes into focus, priorities find their proper place, and things are rightly aligned.  Jesus spoke of this when he said:
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Mt. 6:33
          and
"The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’" Mk 12:29-30 
Spiritual self-examination is so very Biblical. When was the last time you did a spiritual pulse-check?  Don't wait 'til your life is already wrecked to give God first place.  A great starting point is Psalm 119.



Get alone somehow with God today and pray this prayer: 


"Search me, Oh God and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me into the way everlasting..."  (Ps. 119)


-RCW
What's Your Plan for Making Disciples?
3/27/2012 | Author: RCW
So, Jesus told his disciples and -- by extension -- us in Matthew 28:19-20: 


"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." 


The main instruction that Jesus gave His followers was to make disciples.  (Go is actually a participle and could even be translated "as you go" or "while going" or "when you go.")


So, here is my primary question.  If you consider yourself a follower of Christ, how are you involving yourself in making disciples?  Is that a job reserved for pastors?  Is that a job reserved for the spiritually elite?  By no means!  Making disciples ought to be the business of every true follower of Christ.


So what is stopping you?  There are plenty of possible inhibitors.  Here are some biggies:
  • Popular Inhibitor #1 - Maybe you have no concept of what "making disciples" looks like in a 21st century context.  That's okay.  If you are wondering whether Jesus wants you to wear sandals and a toga, speak in thees and thous and ask 12 random people to follow you around day and night, you've got the wrong mental picture.  The next time you are at church, ask your discipleship pastor how you personally can get involved making disciples.  You might teach a class, you might mentor a young believer, you might serve within the church, or facilitate some curriculum with a small group.  Making disciples means creating more followers of Jesus and helping His existing followers follow Him more closely.  Believe it or not -- anybody who is following Jesus can do those things. 
  • Popular Inhibitor #2 - Do you trust in church programs to make disciples?  Making disciples is surely the job of the local church.  If churches aren't focused on making disciples, they probably shouldn't exist.  But who is the local church but YOU?  The church is primarily people and not a building or institution.  One close friend of mine came to a realization in his late twenties that devastated him.  He came to me one day and said, "I can't believe that I wasted all these years expecting my local church to take primary responsibility for making disciples when all along it is my responsibility!"  It took this friend of mine stumbling onto this great book to learn that he could make disciples in his own time in his own way.  Today, he would tell you that the rewards just keep on multiplying as people he has discipled are now discipling others.       
  • Popular Inhibitor #3 - You might be thinking, "It might feel awkward.  How do I get started and just start making disciples?  I can't just stroll up to someone and say, 'Sit down while I teach you to follow Jesus.'  Worse still: 'Will you be my disciple?'"  You are right...either of those approaches would make for a pretty awkward start.  The place to start is to begin praying, listening, and watching.  Ask God to point you to the people he wants you to influence.  Pay attention to those in your life who need a better grasp of how to follow Christ.  Look for opportunities to communicate your faith and even teach it to others.  Do that long enough, and you won't be asking for more opportunities, you'll be having to ask God to help you choose which options to take to make disciples most effectively. 
May God bless you in your efforts and grow you as you aid others in following Christ more closely.  Email me if you need help!  More on this to come...


-RCW



Is it Your Serve?
3/15/2012 | Author: RCW
One of the things that gets talked about the least when it comes to discipleship is the importance of service.

It's surely a very important thing to begin your walk with Christ by reading the Bible and spending time in prayer and devotion with God, etc. Yet, sometimes putting your faith into action becomes an enormous catalyst for spiritual growth.

I once heard someone say, "I'm so tired of coming to church and having responsibilities...I just want to go back to when I could show up, sit, get fed, and leave."  I've been there too.  But honestly?  Would that not be a step backward?  Sure, there are times when God may be calling us to rest and retreat from the work (Jesus went to the mountainside alone to pray with good regularity throughout his ministry).  But God also demands that we not simply acquire knowledge about Him and never put it into practice.  What God reveals to you He intends for you to share with others.

I've been around a lot of Christian academic types.  I love them.  I resonate with them.  But it broke my heart that time and again the seminary students who knew the most were quite often the students who served the least.  (Many of them wouldn't even attend church!)  God didn't mean for you to soak up truths like a sponge.  Once you start growing, you had better start serving.  And for some people, they would say that they really didn't start growing until they started serving.

Get your hands dirty doing work for God.  Feed the hungry.  Donate your time and energy.  Set up some chairs or tables at church.  Visit a shut-in.  Offer to fold or stuff some newsletters.  Scrub a toilet for Jesus.  Coach an Upward team.  Teach 3 year olds in the nursery.  The next time a minister asks you to help with something, do something crazy and just say yes.  Better yet, go ask your church leaders where you can help and maybe even use your spiritual gifts.  American churches are generally plagued by a lack of volunteers.  Why?  It's because everyone wants to receive from church, but nobody wants to give.  Our consumer-driven culture has caused our churches to be full of consumer-minded Christians.  Don't be part of the problem.  Be a part of the solution.  Get in the game...for God's sake!

-RCW
Augustine and Reading (Part 3 of 3)
3/09/2012 | Author: RCW
Last year, I was doing a series of entries on reading. Several entries were about Augustine and Reading. Here's another installment. Just read Augustine's Egyptian Gold Analogy. It can be found in both De Doctrina Christiana (In English that title means On Christian Doctrine or Teaching Christianity) as well as The Confessions. In it, Augustine shares an analogy that allows us to answer the question "Is there some sort of value for Christians to read pagan works or works that are written either by non-believers or from a non-Christian perspective. He writes:


If those, however, who are called philosophers happen to have said anything that is true, agreeable to our faith, the Platonists above all, not only should we not be afraid of them, but we should even claim back for our own use what they have said, as from its unjust possessors.  It is like the Egyptians, who not only had idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel abominated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and fine raiment, which the people secretly appropriated for their own, and indeed better use as they went forth from Egypt; and this not on their own initiative, but on God’s instructions, with the Egyptians unwittingly lending them things they were not themselves making good use of.

In the same way, while the heathen certainly have counterfeit and superstitious fictions in all their teachings, and the heavy burdens of entirely unnecessary labor, which everyone of us must abominate and shun as we go forth from the company of the heathen under the leadership of Christ, their teachings also contain liberal disciplines which are more suited to the service of the truth, as well as a number of most useful ethical principles, and some true things are to be found among them about worshiping only the one God. All this is like their gold and silver, and not something they instituted themselves, but something which they mined, so to say, from the ore of divine providence, veins of which are everywhere to be found. As they for their part make perverse and unjust use of it in the service of demons, so Christians for theirs ought, when they separate themselves in spirit from their hapless company, to take these things away from them for proper use of preaching the gospel. Their fine raiment too, meaning, that is, what are indeed their human institutions, but still ones that are suitable for human society, which we cannot do without in this life, are things that it will be lawful to take over and convert to Christian use.


So what does it mean? Click this link for some great insights from Dr. Naugle of Dallas Baptist University distributed at his summer institute in Christian scholarship.

As a Christian, don't be afraid to read a different perspective.  Read Oscar Wilde or a Hindu text or The Celestine Prophecy.  You'll find falsehoods.  But you might find something useful and true as well.  Search for the truth as for gold and silver, harvest it wherever it may be found, sanctify it unto God, and put it in service to Christ--for it is there that it finds its true value.

-RCW