Tag Archives: MAKE JESUS LORD

GOING ON WITH GOD.111515

summer landscape. mountain path through the field turns uphill to the sky at sunsetBefore I start this post, I have to tell you it only took me about forty years to reach the point of actually ‘going on with God’.  I knew about God, I even ‘knew’ God, when I was about ten years old; but I didn’t really start to ‘go on with God’, to really follow Him with all my heart, till I was about fifty.  Oh, I had several ‘close encounters of a spiritual kind’ with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit during that forty years, but I was living a divided life, trying to ‘make it in the world’, while maintaining a relationship with God.  Let me tell you, I’m living proof that you can’t serve  two masters.

I thought about calling this post ‘Practicing Christian 4’, or maybe ‘Making Disciples 4’.  In any event, the question for the day is, “What do you do now? After 1 you’ve made a genuine commitment to Jesus; 2 you have a daily quiet time where you read a little Bible, read a little devotional, you talk to God, and you listen to Him; 3 you have a relationship with a Christian mentor; 4 and you’re involved in a small group.  It’s a good start.  So where do you go from here? Continue reading

Advertisement

TEACHING THEM WHAT? 110515

Teacher talking with students in the clasroomOK, In Matt. 28:18-20, Jesus says, “I have all authority, so go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them .  .  .  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. .  .  . and [know this] I am with you always, even unto the end of the world [age].”  What does in mean, “all things”?  Some folks would say those things are particular things, like ‘love God with all your heart’, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, ‘seek first the kingdom of God . . .’, ‘don’t resist evil’; ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart’; ‘rejoice evermore’.

If we really want to ‘make disciples’ maybe we should teach an attitude of surrender; of surrendering ourselves to Jesus; like it says in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wants to be My disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross [meaning “die to yourself”](see Galatians 2:20), daily, and follow Me.”  To have the attitude in your heart that comes from Jesus, that says, “I’m not touched by things in this world, because Jesus has put His Spirit in my heart.”  So you get to the point where you really don’t care what happens to you and your stuff, because you’re thinking about Jesus and helping others come to a personal relationship with Him.   That’s something really worth teaching and worth learning.

Like Paul said in Romans 5:3-5, “And not only that, but we also [rejoice] in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces [endurance]; 4 and [endurance], character; and character, hope. 5 Now [this] hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”  When you get that attitude in your heart, then observing all the things Jesus commanded becomes possible.

PRACTICING CHRISTIAN PART TWO.102115

Young christian woman turning pages of the Bible searching for promisesPracticing being a Christian is sorta like practicing to be a baseball player.  If you want to be a good baseball player, you do it every day; you focus your attention on it, you replay the game in you mind, you dream about making it to “The Bigs”.  But most of all, you stay focused on the fundamentals. The fundamentals in baseball are throw, catch and bat.  Being a Christian is a lot like that.  Practicing Christians do it every day too, they practice THE FUNDAMENTALS every  day; they 1] FOCUS ON GOD EVERY DAY; give Him some time and attention 2] SURRENDER to JESUS and MAKE HIM THE LORD OF THEIR LIFE (every day) 3] READ THE BIBLE and some Devotional 4] PRAY and MEDITATE on what they’ve read; 5] LISTEN FOR GOD to tell them what to do about it. Continue reading