I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot recently. We live in a world that does not live or abide by this idea - inside and outside the church; christian and non-christian alike. We live in a world that says:

• Follow your heart.

• Do what you think is right.

• Whatever you think or feel is true.

• Follow yourself.

But that is not what God says. God says:

• Follow My Word.

• Do what I say is right.

• Whatever I say is true.

• Follow Me.

Now we turn our attention to the next critical question: What is the process of discipleship?

1) Prepare.
2) Prayerfully Select.
3) Plan.
4) Promote.

In discipleship, you are packing their spiritual suitcase for the journey of life.

Now we turn our attention to the next critical question: What are the goals of discipleship?

I believe that there are two simple & Biblical goals of discipleship that can help you think through this. No matter the method. No matter the material. No matter the context. No matter the student. There are the two essential goals of discipleship.

Once you answer the question what the command of discipleship? And you answer the question what is a disciple? The next logical question to move toward is what is discipleship? This is an extremely important question. Definitions matter. How we define something affects how we pursue it. Disciple means follower. So discipleship is creating followers.

Discipleship can mean a lot of things. I pray our Sunday morning gatherings are a time of discipleship. I pray our small groups are a time of discipleship. I pray conversations with our friends, family, and coworkers are a time of discipleship. But here is a simple definition for you to think about that I pray can bring clarity and give you a framework of discipleship.

Discipleship is taking the necessary time to win, involve, and teach someone how to follow Jesus.

Discipleship should be more than a buzzword in our lives and in our churches. Part of that starts with good definitions, good goals, and good direction. What would it look like if we were people who adhered to Jesus, abided in Jesus, and advanced the gospel of Jesus? What would it look like if we produced followers of Jesus like that? Can you imagine? Watch out. God would transform the world. He already has shown us what He can do through disciples like that. A quote that keeps me going:

"The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him." - DL Moody

Discipleship. We all talk about it. We all want it. But what if discipleship was more than just a buzzword? What if we lived it out. Once you see discipleship in the Scriptures, you can’t unsee it. It is present cover to cover. Discipleship was God’s idea. And it is God’s plan. It is something that you can do. It is something that I can do. We can live this out. It may be one of the most important things that we do with our family, friends, co-workers, and church members. I know one thing is for sure - my life would not be the same without intentional discipleship.

This is one of my favorite quotes that my dad ever said. I have no idea where he got it from or if he made it up but I use it liberally… Because it is so true. It fuels the heart of ministry for me. It fuels the heart of discipleship. I want to live my days for God. I want to help others live their days for God.

Happy Easter Weekend. This is a significant weekend to us as followers of Jesus. This is the weekend we remember, reflect on, and celebrate the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. I have been mediating a lot on this “Holy Silent Saturday.” This is the day that all was quiet. But hope was coming. This is the day that we can remember that God sees all we are walking through, even silently & alone, and hope is coming.

We have all experienced this. There is something we want. There is something that we believe is best. We pray. We ask God. And God says… NO. There is disappointment. There is frustration. There is grief. There is confusion. What do you do with that? What do you do when God says no?

This has been one of the million dollar questions for all of history: How do I discern God’s Will? As followers of Jesus we believe that God has a good will & a perfect design for our lives and because we want to honor Him with all our lives we want to know it and follow it. But this can be a daunting question and one that we struggle to find the answer to in the complexity and confusion of life. We can be directionally challenged.

HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS: GOD’S WILL IS FOR YOU TO KNOW HIS WILL.

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you felt “surrounded on all sides” and fear dominated all your emotions? I have. This is part of the human experience. In life we face real problems, real enemies, real struggle, and real fear, but we have a real God.

Many of us have been struggle with this false idea that “nothing that I do right now matters”… that is a lie! God has been reminding me more than ever that who you are today is affecting who you are becoming tomorrow. Your 20’s affect your 30’s. That is how life works! So, even in this time, as we go into summer…

CHOOSE TODAY WHO YOU WILL BE TOMORROW!

Sometimes in our Faithful Pursuit of God there are times where we don’t feel intimate with God. Maybe you feel like this. Maybe that is why you opened this blog… because you are struggling and you don’t know what to do. You don’t even understand why you are struggling, but you are. You hesitate because you know that what you feel is not always the most important but it does matter… and you don’t feel intimate with God. You do and do some more to try to fix it but everything you try doesn’t work.

Doubt is one of the most prevalent hardships for Christians. If we got honest so many of us deal with doubts and questions but we will never express them. We feel as if we express doubts we are a weak Christian. No one has ever taught us how to communicate and pray through our doubts in questions. Instead of letting them drive us to the feet of Jesus we often let them pull us away. This was not God’s plan.

Recently I was reading in Job 39. Job has lost everything. He has lost his family, house, cattle, health, etc. You name it… He lost it. Yet, Job never stopped Faithfully Pursuing God. 

Recently I have been reading Dean Inserra’s book “The Unsaved Christian”(which I highly recommend) which is about one of the biggest mission fields in the world… the Cultural Christian. This is the person that has gone to church, comes from a “Christian family”, knows some of the Bible, maybe even “said a prayer”, but has never come into a true relationship with Jesus where they lay their life at His feet in surrender.

It probably wouldn’t take much searching to find something that has really frustrated with us and left us confused and hurt over the last year. Maybe its politics and leadership. Maybe its the leader of an organization. Maybe it people doing everything contrary to what we know they should be doing. Maybe we look at Scripture and then the Church today and not everything is adding up in our minds. But one thing is for sure is we are frustrated. We often, in these times, throw our hands up and say “Now What?”… What could we possibly do?

Philemon is one of those books that we read but we fail to often grasp fully. It is short, only one chapter, and it addresses an issue that, in modern day America, we want to stay far away from (for good reason) – a bond servant has fled his master. It is here that we see some truly counter cultural leadership by Paul as he calls Philemon to engage in a Faithful Pursuit of Jesus.

John 17 is a beautiful prayer of Jesus to His Father about Him and His followers. This prayer takes place directly before the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in John’s Gospel. It is safe to say that this was some of the final “free” moments of Jesus’ life and He chose to spend it in prayer for he knew what was coming.

“Abide” is word we seldom use in our language today. We perceive it to have a fancy meaning and connotation that we consider not to be defining of our daily lives in our 21st century world…..