Are My Prayer’s Big Enough?

My pastor, Pastor David, started a series on the book The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church is Washington, D.C.

The heart of the message on Sunday looked at the legend of The Circle Maker a man named Honi ha-M’agel. The story of Honi (“hoe-knee”) revolves around an event where he drew a circle with his staff and prayed that God would send rain to help put an end to the drought that was ravaging the land.

On one occasion when God did not send rain well into the winter (in the geographic regions of Israel, it rains mainly in the winter), he drew a circle in the dust, stood inside it, and informed God that he would not move until it rained. When it began to drizzle, Honi told God that he was not satisfied and expected more rain; it then began to pour. He explained that he wanted a calm rain, at which point the rain calmed to a normal rain.

He was almost put into cherem (excommunication) for the above incident in which he showed “dishonor” to God. However, Shimon ben Shetach, the brother of Queen Shlomtzion, excused him, saying that he was Honi and had a special relationship with God. [Source]

The impression that I was left with after the story was that this was a very brash and ostentatious way of praying. I do not think that I have ever, in my life, talked to God that way. And that is exactly what we learn from Honi. Honi was not demanding for God answer to him, but that God was more than capable to do what no one else could. That is a very different way of thinking about prayer and why we pray. We have to believe that God can do what he promises because if we do not, then what are we doing praying at all?

Pastor David challenged us to realize that we were not praying bold enough if we are praying for things that we can accomplish on our own, in our own strength. I have heard this often in the church. I get it. It is a challenge to trust God more and more. But, do you know what really struck me as I was listening to Pastor David? What about me? Am I praying that God would conform me into the image of Jesus? Am I praying that God would change my heart, mind, attitudes, emotions and values?

You see, one of the dangers of praying for “BIG” things is that the biggest thing gets overlooked because “I have it under control.” This is a terrible mistake. I can not change who I am, save myself, or even guarantee the next moment of my life, and we want to pray boldly about “big” things. What could be bigger than being the person that Jesus died for us to be?

Pastor David was right, my prayers are not big and bold enough. But, I left with the impression that the subject of those prayers, at least for me, is not those “big” things “out there,” but the big things inside my own heart. I know that this is my tendency, to look inside rather than out. What I have realized is that I want to be the person that prays bigger and bolder prayers because I do believe that God WILL, not just another a person who prays big prayers because I think God CAN.

Spiritual Starvation: The Reason Many Christian’s Struggle

Ok, so here is the deal. When I get hungry, I eat. When I get tired, I sleep. When I get discouraged, I eat. Just kidding on the last one. I usually go watch a movie or watch my kids play.

On a serious note, though, if hunger is the sign that something needs to be put in our stomach’s, what are we supposed to put in our spiritual belly when we are spiritually hungry? This is a question that I have been trying to get my head and heart around over the last couple of months. I do not have this all figured out, but I think that I am going in the right direction. So, let me share with you what I have been thinking.

There are two places in the Gospel’s were Jesus says something about spiritual food. What makes these two instances interesting is that one has to do with consumption and the other has to do with activity. I am by no means the symbol of fitness or dietary excellence, but I know that if I want to be healthy I have to eat well and exercise or stay active.

This is what Jesus said. The first he said to the devil and the second he said to his disciples.

But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4, ESV)

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work….” (John 4:31-34, ESV)

Continue reading “Spiritual Starvation: The Reason Many Christian’s Struggle”

When Rules Rule Relationships Suffer

My pastor has been teaching/preaching through a series off the book Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman. Yesterday he spoke on the subject “More than Rules.” As Pastor David preached he said something that just stood out to me. He said,

No body falls in love with a rule.

We all are built with an desire to love and be loved. Rules do not give us this relational reality. We want someone who knows us and accepts us for who we are, fallen and flawed. I guess part of the problems is that we have to see ourselves this way first. It can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if we do something long enough and with enough conviction we will see the love come to us that we want. The relationship has to come first. We have to learn to see one another and received one another first. Then, and only then, when the rules come, we will not use them against each other.

The story of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8 reveals this. Pastor David used this story as the back drop for teaching. The gist of the story is this. A woman is caught “in the act” by a group of religious leaders. How they managed to do this is not stated, but we can imagine that it was not lucky timing. This mob drags this woman in front of Jesus and then they put the question to Jesus. “This woman was caught in adultery, what should we do? The law (the rules) say that we should stone her.”

Jesus doesn’t play the game. What does he do? He distracts the crowd from the woman, who is ashamed and terrified beyond description and starts writing on the ground. What does he write? We have no idea, and in the end it doesn’t matter. But, after a few moments Jesus makes his own announcement. “Let any one of you who has never sinned throw the first stone to kill this woman.”

We do not know how it happened, but the image, or rather the sound that fills my imagination is the sound of stone upon stone falling to the ground.

Thud.

THUD.

When the crowd is gone there are only two remaining, the sinner, an adulterous woman, and the Judge. Yes, the judge is there. Jesus is the savior, he is the Messiah, he is the greater forgiver of sin. But, what was Jesus question? He said, “Let any one of you who has never sinned throw the first stone to kill this woman.” Jesus was the only one in the crowd who was without sin! He WAS the judge, he had every right to pick up the stone of judgment and strike this sinful woman down for her sin. But, that is not what he did. The judge did not judge because when rules rule, relationships suffer.

This fact in the story is one of the most astounding facts of the event. The one man that could have, did not. If the one man who knew the rules and lived by them did not participate in this execution, what are we supposed to take away from this moment? I think there are three ideas that we can take away from this event in John 8.

When Rules become more important than relationships we have lost our way.
Relationships are hard, but worth the effort.
Just because you could pronounce judgment does not mean you should.

Conversations are great. Let me know what you think or are thinking!

Eat your way into heaven!

Over the last several years I have struggled to lose weight. I know that I can’t continue to eat like it will be my last meal and expect to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight. But, eating is so good. If there were a way to keep eating, but not get full, I think that many of us would probably eat all of the time. Food is a gift from God. We were designed to eat so that we could live and not the other way around.

So let me ask you a question: if food is needed to sustain your physical life, what do you need to “eat” in order to sustain your spiritual life?

It can be so easy to think that the physical and the spiritual are in the same condition, but that would be a mistake. The problem that many of us have is that we are very good at diagnosing where we are spiritually. I would strongly recommend Donald Whitney’s book Ten Questions to Diagnose your Spiritual Health. I can read the questions and some of my thoughts on each here in Part 1 and Part 2.

Back to my question, what do you have to “eat”? I have found that the only spiritual food that God has provided for us is his word. Listen to what Jesus said to the Devil after forty days of fasting,

³And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴But he answered, “It is written,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

(Matthew 4:3-4, ESV)

“Every word that come the mouth of God” is what provides the nourishment that we need in order to feed our spirit. One of the things that we have to realize is that we do not truly know how spiritually malnourished we are until we have fed our spirit healthy food. The more junk we take in the weaker we become. I would challenge you to begin reading scripture on a daily basis, three times a day even, and see if your spiritual life does not improve.

There is no way that you can eat too much of the word of God. And, there is an added benefit to eating scripture, you will grow more healthy with each bite!

Ten Questions That May Change Your Life, Pt. 2

These are the other five questions from Donald Whitney’s book. We look at the first five questions in a previous post.

6. Do you delight in the Bride of Christ?

This was one of those questions that did not seem to fit in with the rest of the questions. My first reaction was this, “What does this have to do with my ‘personal’ faith journey?” And, fundamentally, that was part of the problem. When I create a scenario where my faith is all about “me” and my faith is not a part of the greater “we,” (i.e., the church), then I have set myself up to no longer need anybody else. In order to avoid this we have to see the faith as something that we come into rather than as something that belongs to me. I just bought shares in the Kingdom of God. That is not how it works.

“So one of the best tests of whether we belong to Christ is whether we delight in His delight, namely, the people who comprise His church.” (Kindle Location, 754)

This is a wonderful reflection of what is missing in many areas of the church. There are places where members of the same congregation have not spoken to each other in years, maybe even decades. This is not a good witness to the world about the love of God in us, for them. If I do not or cannot delight in the company of the other believers, heaven will not be as blissful as many have imagined. This next statement and question helped me to clearly understand what this idea of delighting in the Bride of Christ meant.

“The truth of Scripture is better expressed by a congregation confessing, ‘We are the bride of Christ,’ than by a solitary Christian saying, ‘I am the bride of Christ.’ Therefore, do you delight in the church, that is, in the gathering of believers, their corporate experiences and labor?” (Kindle Location, 772)

7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you?

My first reaction was, “No.” I have not participated in spiritual disciplines like I should. The primary reason is that I was unaware that there were a variety that could be practiced. After reading Whitney I have discovered that the spiritual disciplines must move from the category of “could be done” and become “should be done.” There are several statements made by Whitney in this chapter that are worth highlighting.

“Remember also that the spiritual disciplines found in Christian Scripture are sufficient.” (Kindle Location, 876)

“All the Christian spiritual disciplines are important and singularly beneficial. A discipline neglected is a blessing unclaimed.” (Kindle Location, 879)

This final example reveals the goal of the disciples life. To learn and grow and foster a consistent witness and a growing faith. We shouldn’t want to be a flash of fervor followed by nothing.

“Perhaps you are like a Christian woman I know who sometimes wonders if she is still growing spiritually, because the original God-kindled blaze of eternal life that once illuminated the darkness of her life so suddenly, seldom flames up as dramatically as when she was first converted. But what is true for the woodstove is true in this case for the Christian heart as well: just because the beginning of the combustion may briefly be more spectacular than at present doesn’t mean the fire isn’t growing. The initial burst of spiritual flame may be more dazzling, but the heartfire’s greatest effectiveness occurs as it burns into consistency.” (Kindle Location, 861)

8. Do you still grieve over sin?

My first reaction to this was, “I am not even sure people would understand this question.” As I read through the chapter it was just amazing to me how easy it is to become prideful in having received God’s grace. The wonderful words of God’s love are supposed to make us for full of ourselves. We should be moved to become more full of Him. Grieve over my sin changes how I look at everything, or at least it should.

“The closer you get to Christ, the more you will hate sin; for nothing is more unlike Christ than sin. Because Jesus hates sin, the more like Him you grow the more you will grow to hate sin. And the more you hate sin, the more you will grieve whenever you realize that you have embraced that which killed your Savior.” Kindle Location, 956)

Whitney’s clear description of what it means to draw closer to Jesus is important. Sin is darkness. It is everything that God is not and will never be. Therefore, if we are drawing closer to the eternal life of the Son of God the must necessarily be change occurring in our lives. This understanding of drawing close and the quote from Thomas D. Bernard, was also very revealing.

“The closer you come to the light of Christ, the more sins His holy light will expose in you. In the words of nineteenth century Bible scholar Thomas D. Bernard, ‘Our sense of sin is in proportion to our nearness to God.'” (Kindle Location, 971)

Finally, I was struck by the unshakable reality that grieving over sin will actually have the opposite effect than what I anticipated. Whitney says that

“Godly sorrow in the growing Christian makes him a thousand times more aware of his pride than his humility.” (Kindle Location, 1013)

9. Are you a quicker forgiver?

As I mentioned in Part 1, these questions are so simple and direct the longer you look at them the more you realize how important the answers are. This question in particular, has that effect. Let the two following passages sink in for a moment.

“Repenters toward God are forgivers toward others. Those who find themselves unable to forgive reveal that they’ve never experienced the transforming forgiveness of God.” (Kindle Location, 1084)

“The one who announces forgiveness where it hasn’t been sought not only discounts the importance of repentance, he also misunderstands the requirement of Scripture. But the one who is not willing to forgive is contradicting the Scripture, and for the moment at least, is putting the reality of his salvation to the test.” (Kindle Location, 1106)

I do not think that Whitney was off the mark here. Not only is our testimony questionable when we fail to forgive, but we should be concerned about where we stand before. When we are unable or unwilling to extend forgiveness to others after we have experienced it for ourselves, something is terribly wrong.

10. Do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus?

We have all heard that there are some people who are “So heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” Well, the truth may actually be the opposite. What if we are not heavenly minded enough? What if we have failed to truly consider the wonder and joy of heaven? What if, because we do not appreciate what is to come, we have sold ourselves and those around us short of God’s best?

The twist that Whitney provides here is that the yearning for heaven that all Christian’s should have is at its heart a longer for the completion of God’s work of making us totally holy. When the work of Salvation that Jesus ratified on the cross is completed, we will be able to enjoy God’s company forever. But, only a holy people can enjoy that. That is why a yearning for heaven is a desire to holy. This was last statement is just a striking truth.

“Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “But neither a … longing to be in Heaven, nor longing to die, are in any measure so distinguishing marks of true saints, as longing after a more holy heart.”‘” (Kindle Location, 1198)

“Paul wrote like a man who had not only tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8), but like one who has found the holiness of the Lord eternally and irresistibly addictive.” (Kindle Location, 1229)

The single best sermon I have EVER heard on what heaven will be like was given by Dr. Sam Storms in 2003 at the Desiring God National Conference. It was called “Joy’s Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven”. You can listen online or download the video here.

Conclusion

These ten question have the potential to provide a major course correction in your faith journey. But, they could also end up doing nothing to take you deeper into God’s plan and purposes for your life. The choice is yours.

Are We “Pro-Jesus” or With Jesus?

Our pastor has been preaching a series of sermons on the difference between being a fan and a follower of Jesus. This Sunday we looked at the difference between having a knowledge of Jesus and have an intimate relationship with Jesus. While you need to have a knowledge of Jesus in order to have an intimate relationship, you can have knowledge of Jesus and completely miss the intimacy. The Scripture reference was the story of the Sinful Woman that came and washed Jesus feet with her tears and hair. This is a powerful story. (Read it here.)

As Pastor David preached he said something that was funny at first glance, but after I gave it more thought really made me think. Am I “Pro-Jesus” or am I with Jesus? I will be splitting the proverbial hair here, but it just struck me odd after thinking about it. It can be so easy to be satisfied with being around Jesus, being near Jesus, being close to Jesus that we never push forward to being with Jesus. The idea is that we can be in the same room, but never engage in the conversation.

I don’t want to just be someone who is known for liking what Jesus stood for. Or knowing everything there is to know about Jesus. I want to be known by him. This is the idea that Paul is getting after when he says that there will come a moment when all of this will change.

¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12, NLT)

There it is. God’s way of knowing will becoming my way of knowing. That is going to be a glorious day. When we are “Pro-Jesus” we are only interested in the exterior. How does this look? What do other people think? This was the problem with the man who invited Jesus to have a meal with him. He invited Jesus, failed to pay customary courtesy and then becomes indignant when another, the sinful woman, outshines the host, even when it was completely inappropriate. Simon the Pharisee missed out on the greatest opportunity of his life, and for what? He missed it because he was looking at the wrong person.

The sin of religious piety and of false humility will always lead to a skewed perspective of how things ought to be. As soon as the woman came in and began to worship Jesus, because that is what we have to call it, the “holiest” man in the room had this thought, “If this man [Jesus] were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7: 39b, ESV). And, as if on cue, Jesus answers the mans thoughts and puts him in his place.

The bottom line is that we should never be satisfied with being mere acquaintances with Jesus. We should be willing to go the ends of the earth for Jesus. Even if, or better still, especially when it costs us our dignity and self-respect. The sad reality is that for many of us who claim to be Christians, if Jesus asks us to give up our dignity and self-respect, we would rather have him move along until he comes to his senses.

We can know how deeply our commitment is rooted when we consider how far we are willing to go to show our devotion and faithfulness to God and his Son. Until we know how far we will go, we will not truly know or understand how valuable Jesus is in our lives.

http://youtu.be/FBNfkZKnsaw

Ten Questions That May Change Your Life, Pt. 1

Here are the ten questions that Donald Whitney poses in his book Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. Like I said in my review the simplicity, directness and depth of these questions truly is remarkable. I would encourage you to take some time and look at each one. Take the next ten days and see what God reveals to you.

I have provided the first five questions here, along with some of my reflections on them. We will look at the other five in another post.

1. Do you thirst for God?

This one is very interesting. The focus is not on having a relationship with God, but on and in God himself. Is God the most important part of my life? While I want to answer yes to this question. I really had to look at my life and see if there were areas that did not conform to this answer. There were, and still are places where I do not thirst for God. Here are few samples of what how Whitney defines what thirsting after God means.

“Just because a man longs for something that can be found in God alone doesn’t mean he’s looking for God.” (Kindle Location, 96)

“Many who claim they are questing for God are not thirsting for God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, but only for God as they want Him to be, or for a god who will give them what they want.” (Kindle Location, 97)

2. Are you governed increasingly by God’s Word?

I think of all the questions this one was the “easiest” to answer. I know that my life has been growing in this area like never before. Even still, I have to say that I am not where I need to be in this area of my life. There are still times when I am careless with God’s word. Where I can play it “fast and loose” with what God would say or have me do. When you know enough of what the Bible says to bend it, you have to be very careful.

“The person who can content himself with few or routine contacts with Scripture may be manifesting something far worse than spiritual decline.” (Kindle Location, 252)

This statement is so true. The longer you spend in the word the more you will find that what you believe changes. It changes not because it was a wrong belief, but because you actually begin to believe it and that changes you!

“Speaking in a practical way, you know that God’s Word is growing in its influence over you when you can point to increasing numbers of beliefs and actions that have been changed because of the potency of specific texts of Scripture.” (Kindle Location, 282)

3. Are you more loving?

I pray that I am. If I answer this question in relation to how I feel for others, I would say that my sensitivity to the needs and circumstances of others has grown and increased. But, when I consider that love is an action, I am left knowing that I fall far short of what God desires to see in me. It is easy to love from a distance. I don’t get close enough sometimes. Part of the reason is because I just don’t know what to do sometimes. I am hoping that this changes as I continue to grow.

These two statement stood out to me and were really helpful in helping me to think about and evaluate where my growth in Christ-like love is.

“When love grows colder, our sin increasingly manifests itself and we look more unlike Jesus.” (Kindle Location, 351)

This next statement cut sharply against the tendency among some in the church to think that doing something nice or kind some how amounts to meeting God’s expectations of us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Many people, therefore, are congratulating themselves for what amounts to merely being human, and they conclude amiss that this innate love testifies of spiritual health. Natural affection, however, is just one of several pretenders to the kind of love only those indwelt by the Holy Spirit can express.” (Kindle Location, 373)

4. Are you more sensitive to God’s presence?

This is one of those things that is almost impossible to quantify, and yet Whitney provided a clear and powerful description of what we should be looking for. There were a three ideas that were very helpful. Here is the first

“…it is through His Word that our experience with God, including our perception of His presence, is mediated.” (Kindle Location, 515)

We cannot encounter God directly, and we really shouldn’t. Moses taught us this when he asked to see God’s glory (Exodus 33:18). And God responds by telling Moses, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (33:20).

The second statement that Whitney makes is connected to the one above, when he says,

When we seek the presence of God mediated–directly or indirectly–through Scripture, we are not imagining God as we would like Him to be. The basis of our experience with God is God-revealed truth, not our individual, idiosyncratic opinions about God. (Kindle Location, 528)

And isn’t this exactly what we want? To make sure that we are not worshiping or seeking a God of our own creation we have allow the Word of God to guide and determine our understanding of Him. Which leads to the third statement that was probably the one that got me the most in this section.

Without a mediated sense of God’s presence, how can I know I have indeed encountered the God of the Bible? How can I be sure that I haven’t delved into the recesses of a mysterious, imaginative mind and simply manufactured an experience? (Kindle Location, 546)

5. Do you have a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others?

Possible the most difficult aspect of this question is the “and” between spiritual and temporal. As I read I was confronted with the reality that theses two realities of a person’s life cannot be separated. If we are seeking to help someone in their spiritual journey, then we must also address their physical needs. If we just do one or the other we are dismissing the reality that we are physical creatures AND we are spiritual beings. We are both at the same time. There can be no dividing of the two. Even James said this when he reminded us that sending someone off without tending to what they need is not what God had in mind (James 2:14ff).

Evangelism that ignores hollow-eyed hunger or other crying needs of the ones being evangelized is a physical contradiction to the spiritual message.” (Kindle Location, 643)

I literally cringed when I read this statement. It is too often the truth. I pray that it changes.

There is no Christlikeness in throwing money at a physical need or in dutifully reading a few Bible verses to an unbeliever and apathetically sending him on his way to hell.” (Kindle Location, 671)

Next Time:

In Part 2 we will look at the following questions.

6. Do you delight in the Bride of Christ?
7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you?
8. Do you still grieve over sin?
9. Are you a quicker forgiver?
10. Do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus?

Book Review | Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Donald Whitney’s book on spiritual health is probably one of the most challenging that I have read in the last few years. I began to read it not really expecting to finish. You just never know what you will find in books that claim to offer insights into spiritual formation. What I found was a book that did not travel the same path as other books. Each of the questions struck a different note. And each question moved me closer to understanding that there is much more involved in my own spiritual development than I had noted before.

I think that one of the things that struck me about each of the questions was how “ordinary” they were. There were not overly spiritual, but as I dug deeper into what they meant for my own faith journey I was struck at how much was still left to uncover. This is not a book that can be read or digested quickly. I would say that each question could be expanded into individual books themselves. As I read I found myself challenged on two fronts.

First, I was struck by the directness of the questions. There was not mincing of words. Whitney was direct and went right to the bottom line. There is a wonderful mix of practical application and spiritual depth. I found myself having to pause and think, often times several times on the same page. This is not one of those books you just push through reading. It has a tendency to push back.

The second area that I found myself thinking about was this. If I cannot answer these questions in a Biblical and honest way there is a problem with my spiritual health. Along these lines, I realized that the questions were not what I expected. I was expecting some other “spiritual” questions, but as I read and thought about the questions that Whitney asked I was left rethinking what I thought was spiritual and what was not.

As we walk along the path of faith, we will be confronted with the fact that the longer my “life” and my “faith” exist in different, separate areas, the longer it will take for me to arrive at a place of maturity. These questions reveal that I cannot avoid becoming a Christian if I practice spiritual disciplines. And isn’t this exactly what we want, to be what we profess?

My next post will give the ten questions and some of my thoughts about each.

A Spiritual Gut Check

In this post I will let you in on my plan and my dream! Read on and I hope you join the journey with me!

Yesterday I said that I would be letting you in on something that I will be doing this year. Well, here it is.

One of my “Faith” goals is to make one new disciple of Jesus, for Jesus this year.

Now, while that may not be too earth shattering to some, it is to me. I want to intentional find and lead another soul into a deeper relationship with Jesus. I have to tell you, I am scared and excited about it.

So, let me give you some background and then the plan.

This all begins with a simple question. I gave you a hint yesterday. Do you remember what it is? I asked: What was the last thing that Jesus asked and left for his disciples to do when he went back to heaven? He said it at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. Let’s read it:

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV)

Jesus was given authority by his heavenly father, and with that authority Jesus commanded his disciples, both present and future, to go and make more disciples. That appears to be relatively straight forward. One would think that this would be something that the church and her members would spend a lot of time thinking about and doing. To some degree, we do a very good job of talking about discipleship. It is just in the execution of the plan that most of us get bogged down and even stall into failure.

Here is the gut check. In the time that you have been a Christian, have you ever, intentionally made a disciple? Now, before you answer that question, here is the definition of a disciple.

A disciple is someone who makes disciples.

This definition is designed to be both wide and narrow. It is wide because we are not designating “how” this happens. There are a multitude of factors that play into making disciples, and we will discuss some of those in the future. The “how” should never become more important than the “what.” When you claim to be a disciple there is a necessary byproduct to this profession.

Here is the simple truth of it. If we are disciples and we are NOT making disciples, we are misfiring is a very critical way. A brand new car, with no gas, is just as useless as a car with no engine. They both might look the same, but something vital to its work is missing. But, if the gas is added, then the one that has all the necessary components will work as it was designed to do.

The engine of the Christian life is the process of discipleship. Without it the Christian does not have what he or she needs to move towards God’s purposes. The gas that moves the discipleship engine is the Word of God. This is something that we will see.

But, this definition is also narrow because it identifies the expected “what” that should come from the process of discipleship. After a discple has been made, what should they do and what should they be? They should be disciples, followers of Jesus, who go and make more disciples that look like Jesus AND themselves! This is what I call the ELEVENone Principle.

Paul helps the Corinthians understand what it looks like to be disciples and to do what disciples do when they adhere to this one idea. Read if for yourself.

¹Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:1, ESV)

Here is the question that just grabs me and will not let go when I read this erse. Who is Paul asking the Corinthians to imitate?

Now before you go and give me to old, “Well I am not Paul” line. Let me ask this. Are you supposed to be? Whoever said that everybody had to be an apostle in order to make disciples or even say what Paul says here.

“It just sounds so prideful and arrogant.” “Who am I to ask someone else to do what I am doing?” Wow! With that kind of humility why shouldn’t we follow you! (Sorry, but this kind of thinking drives me crazy.) When did it become more faith-filled to avoid doing what the Bible points to us doing? Jesus never promised us a perfect, care-free life. Trials and trouble, sometimes, are what mark the life of a Christ follower.

The level of self-awareness and humble recognition that Paul is calling the Corinthian’s and all believers who read his words to is this, nobody can be for another what Jesus is for us. But that does not remove the responsibility that we have to be and become like Christ to those that God has placed in on our path.

I could go on and on here, but I will save some of this for later. Here is the bottom line. If you are a disciple of Jesus, then you need to be making disciples. No exceptions. No excuses. So, the question that we must as is why are we not intentionally making disciples? What is holding you back? Could it be that we do not know what to do even to get started? I know that this is exactly what the problem was for me and I am in full-time ministry!

So, this is what we are going to do. If you are interested in learning a simple way of growing closer to Jesus and helping others grow closer to Jesus, i.e., make disciples, this is what I want you to do.

Pray. Pray. Pray.

Pray that God would confirm his plan of using you to make one disciple of Jesus, for Jesus this year. Pray that God would start a fire in your heart for the souls of those whom God sends to intersect your path. If this is what you want to see in your life commit yourself to trying something new.

Today will be a time of prayer and reflection. Tomorrow, if you want to be a part of a plan to make one disciple of Jesus, for Jesus this year, I will share with you a simple process that will blow you away. It did for me!

Some Thoughts for a Friend | “Why the Missional Church Will Fail”

I was put onto this article, “Why the Missional Church Will Fail,” by my friend Joel Diaz (@thejoeldiaz) who wanted me to comment (I am sure for the sake of discussion). I will provide my thoughts in list form to reduce my tendency to say too much.

Three Observations

1. I agree in principle with the underlying premise of the post. Mission devoid of discipleship will leave the church looking like a car dealership parking lot with a plethora of options and not a single way of moving them because all of the engines have been removed.

“If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing. Always.”

2. The missional movements passion for doing the work of the kingdom has been and is a needed corrective to what has been perceived as the “dry” and sometimes “stale” orthodoxy of the institutional church. (I don’t believe either of these are true, but perception tends to be reality.)

“God did not design us to do Kingdom mission outside of the scope of intentional, biblical discipleship and if we don’t see that, we’re fooling ourselves. Mission is under the umbrella of discipleship as it is one of the many things that Jesus taught his disciples to do well. But it wasn’t done in a vacuum outside of knowing God and being shaped by that relationship, where a constant refinement of their character was happening alongside of their continued skill development (which included mission).”

3. This next comment is based on this ONE post. I do not know what has been said in other posts or places by the author.

As in most cases when I hear someone start talking about discipleship, and the need to be better at it, there is hardly ever any attempt to provide the pattern, system, methods or whatever that Jesus actually did to form and shape the first disciples. If there is one thing that is undeniably clear about the first disciples it was this: They were completely certain of what Jesus had taught them to do.

The danger with discussions about discipleship is that we base the conversation upon the effects that we see in the Scripture and hope to see in our day because we have no idea about how to create the conditions for those effects.

Final Thoughts

I do not believe that the process or method of forming disciples is something that changes because of context. We have no evidence that the discipleship process of the New Testament was adjusted as the apostles traveled the world. But, we do have Paul’s explicit example that the methods of introducing new areas and converts to Jesus, his Gospel and discipleship changed and were adjusted to the context of ministry (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

I have come to the place in my faith journey that anytime we have to “start thinking about discipleship again,” we are exposing the failure of the church and her leaders to keep the main thing the main thing. Anything and everything else is a secondary issue to making disciples. Jesus never said anything about buildings, budgets, bands, books, banners, boycotts or branding. Jesus’ final words were to make disciples.

The bottom line is that we are good at advertising the churches mission statement, but have failed in accomplishing the purpose for which the church was created (Colossians 1:28). Until we get this right we will have to continue addressing this issue.

Source Article: Why the Missional Church Will Fail by Mike Breen