Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came up and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (19) Therefore, as you go, recruit new followers from all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you each and every day until the end of the age."
The Messiah Jesus here gives us what is called the “Great Commission” or “Grand Charge”. Like a general commanding HIS army the Messiah Jesus now tells HIS followers that they are to go out and convert the world. Every nation, every tongue, and every people are to be challenged to become HIS followers, enroll in HIS school of thought, and align their lifestyles with HIS teaching. The claims of Jesus’ Messiahship are to go global as they are acted on locally.
What is a commission? It is a job or task given to a person or a group, especially an order to produce a particular product or piece of work. In this case it is also the authority granted to a person or organization to act as an agent for another. The CHURCH is here given authority by Messiah Jesus to act as HIS agent in the world for recruiting new followers and training them in HIS way of life. This is to create a “community of the KING” that reflects the kingdom of God into a broken world. The church acts as an embassy of peace from the kingdom of heaven offering reconciliation to all who will come and submit to the KING and learn HIS ways.
This is very hard to do in practice. First, most disciples are at best partially discipled. Most believers in Messiah Jesus have not been “trained in everything that the Messiah taught” in a way that leads to practical life change in every aspect of life. They became Christians and did not enroll themselves into any clear and disciplined school of instruction and life training. So the first person that we must make a “disciple” is ourselves.
What would this mean? It could mean many things but here are a few that I think would worth considering if we are to make ourselves disciples aimed at learning how to consistently live for Messiah Jesus.
1. Attending church every Sunday ready to fully participate in worship by arriving early and having a bible and a notebook ready to take notes on the sermon. If you were taking a college course and arrived at the course without a notebook or text book what would that normally mean about your focus and dedication to the class. The “key lecture” of the week takes place on Sunday and this lecture is to form the “key application” for the next seven days. How alert should you be to make sure you understand the message and use it in your life?
2. Get involved in every learning activity you can at your church. How many hours do you watch television? Compare this to how many hours you spend learning the ways of Messiah Jesus. If the church’s purpose is to train followers of Messiah Jesus to live for Messiah Jesus this can only be done when the followers show up to the training classes. Are you showing up to get trained? How could you train others to get trained if you have never become trained yourself?
3. Prayerfully decide on what abilities and passions you have. What can you do? What do you want to do? Now look at the various ministries of your church and choose one or two that could use someone with your abilities and passions. A ministry would be a broad area of service in the church such as “Outreach” or “Education”. If you are not sure then talk to your pastor and get his guidance. Once you have chosen a ministry then look at all the activities that have to happen to make this ministry function and then commit yourself to doing these activities. This will put feet on your faith. The best way for us to learn to be a disciple is by learning on the job in some particular ministry where we can apply what we are being taught.
4. Take your faith to the rest of your life. After each sermon ask yourself these key questions.
How does what I have learned today ask me to make personal changes in my own life? How can I use this in my private worship and spiritual growth process?
How does what I have learned today ask me to make changes in how I treat those in my family?
How does what I have learned today apply to how I treat those at work or in my neighborhood?
How does what I have learned today impact how I act a member of my community, city, state, and nation?
Sometimes our faith does not seem very real to us. One of the reasons for this is that we have compartmentalized our faith into a very small space in our lives. Church is one hour a week on the weeks we make it. There just is not a whole lot of “space” in our schedules or lifestyle for faith. We have already committed this “space” to other concerns, desires, and interest.
If we are to grow in our faith we must give it more “space” in our lives. If our faith is to become real we must have a reasonable plan to make it the ultimate concern of our lives. So how discipled are you in your life? Where could you improve your own discipleship? This will be the first step in making other disciples. We must first learn to disciple ourselves.
Showing posts with label discipleship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipleship. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Saturday, September 06, 2008
The importance of sacrifice
Devotions
Reading: NLT Matthew 16:21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that he had to go to Jerusalem, and he told them what would happen to him there. He would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and he would be raised on the third day. 22 But Peter took him aside and corrected him. "Heaven forbid, Lord," he said. "This will never happen to you!" 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God's." 24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. 26 And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For I, the Son of Man, will come in the glory of my Father with his angels and will judge all people according to their deeds.
Meditation:
Literal: The Holy Spirit has just revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God. Jesus has assured the disciples that the Messianic community that he called “the Church” would be victorious in smashing the gates of hell and that they had true spiritual authority to bind or loose on earth.
Then in the midst of this optimistic and upbeat message, Jesus puts forward a dark cloud. He will go to Jerusalem and be killed. He adds that he will be raised on the third day but this seems to not be heard by Peter or the others. They get emotionally stuck on the fact that Jesus just said that he would be killed which seems to wipe out all the optimistic dreams which had just be spoken.
Peter, then takes Jesus aside privately to correct his theology. “Lord, you are the Messiah, the Messiah cannot die!” Jesus strongly rebukes Peter for this. He calls him an adversary or “Satan” since at this point he is speaking merely from the perspective of a friend and human wisdom, not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus knows that suffering is part of the price of establishing God’s kingdom. Suffering is part of God’s plan.
Jesus then warns the disciples to understand that even though the gates of hell will not stand against them, this does not mean they will not suffer. No instead they must understand that their victory will come through suffering, sacrifice, and pain. Only where people are willing to suffer for the sake of God’s kingdom will the will of God be done on the earth as in heaven. The defeat of hell depends upon the sacrifice of heaven. Only by dying to earthly perspectives, pleasures, and purposes can the disciple become a source of life.
Jesus stresses that the eternal must be valued more than the temporal. The soul must be seen of greater value than the body. While His sacrifice for our sins alone the basis of our acceptance by God we must never believe that “faith” does not include turning away form immoral pleasures and purposes. To believe means to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus. We must never think to use grace and promise as an excuse for not striving to follow. Jesus will judge everything one day and He will not be mocked by people who try to “spiritually con” their way into heaven. The sincerity and reality of our faith will be tested on that day. It is therefore important that we have a faith that accepts sacrifice.
Christocentric: Jesus is Lord. He will be the final judge. He is 100% God and 100% man. His evaluation of our lives is all that matters. He will be the one that ultimately determines our eternal fate and evaluates the validity of our faith. This one person is the most important person in the entire universe. All authority and power rests in Him.
Moral: Jesus urges us to deny ourselves the comfort of false beliefs, immoral passions and uncontrolled appetites by abstinence and the acceptance of pain or discomfort from persecution and loss of ungodly pleasures as necessary elements of our discipleship.
Eternal: Every decision we make should be one that we will be proud of on the Day of Judgment when Jesus examines all our deeds. Judge everything in light of judgment day.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me have the grace and strength to take up my cross today and follow you.
Contemplation: Follow me!
Action: Let me look for ways to die to worldly perspectives and pleasures today. Help me seek the “my cross” where my will has to die in order to do the will of God. Lord, give me the grace to take up my cross today!
Reading: NLT Matthew 16:21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that he had to go to Jerusalem, and he told them what would happen to him there. He would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and he would be raised on the third day. 22 But Peter took him aside and corrected him. "Heaven forbid, Lord," he said. "This will never happen to you!" 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God's." 24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. 26 And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For I, the Son of Man, will come in the glory of my Father with his angels and will judge all people according to their deeds.
Meditation:
Literal: The Holy Spirit has just revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God. Jesus has assured the disciples that the Messianic community that he called “the Church” would be victorious in smashing the gates of hell and that they had true spiritual authority to bind or loose on earth.
Then in the midst of this optimistic and upbeat message, Jesus puts forward a dark cloud. He will go to Jerusalem and be killed. He adds that he will be raised on the third day but this seems to not be heard by Peter or the others. They get emotionally stuck on the fact that Jesus just said that he would be killed which seems to wipe out all the optimistic dreams which had just be spoken.
Peter, then takes Jesus aside privately to correct his theology. “Lord, you are the Messiah, the Messiah cannot die!” Jesus strongly rebukes Peter for this. He calls him an adversary or “Satan” since at this point he is speaking merely from the perspective of a friend and human wisdom, not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus knows that suffering is part of the price of establishing God’s kingdom. Suffering is part of God’s plan.
Jesus then warns the disciples to understand that even though the gates of hell will not stand against them, this does not mean they will not suffer. No instead they must understand that their victory will come through suffering, sacrifice, and pain. Only where people are willing to suffer for the sake of God’s kingdom will the will of God be done on the earth as in heaven. The defeat of hell depends upon the sacrifice of heaven. Only by dying to earthly perspectives, pleasures, and purposes can the disciple become a source of life.
Jesus stresses that the eternal must be valued more than the temporal. The soul must be seen of greater value than the body. While His sacrifice for our sins alone the basis of our acceptance by God we must never believe that “faith” does not include turning away form immoral pleasures and purposes. To believe means to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus. We must never think to use grace and promise as an excuse for not striving to follow. Jesus will judge everything one day and He will not be mocked by people who try to “spiritually con” their way into heaven. The sincerity and reality of our faith will be tested on that day. It is therefore important that we have a faith that accepts sacrifice.
Christocentric: Jesus is Lord. He will be the final judge. He is 100% God and 100% man. His evaluation of our lives is all that matters. He will be the one that ultimately determines our eternal fate and evaluates the validity of our faith. This one person is the most important person in the entire universe. All authority and power rests in Him.
Moral: Jesus urges us to deny ourselves the comfort of false beliefs, immoral passions and uncontrolled appetites by abstinence and the acceptance of pain or discomfort from persecution and loss of ungodly pleasures as necessary elements of our discipleship.
Eternal: Every decision we make should be one that we will be proud of on the Day of Judgment when Jesus examines all our deeds. Judge everything in light of judgment day.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me have the grace and strength to take up my cross today and follow you.
Contemplation: Follow me!
Action: Let me look for ways to die to worldly perspectives and pleasures today. Help me seek the “my cross” where my will has to die in order to do the will of God. Lord, give me the grace to take up my cross today!
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