To Whatever End Part 3

        The greatest example of someone sharing the word of the Lord is Jesus. Take a look into Jesus' ministry platform, it was twelve people. Jesus spent His entire life ministering to twelve people, getting close with them, living life with them, asking and answering hard questions with them, and living out The Great Commission with them. While Jesus did preach to large crowds a few times, He also withdrew from large crowds to focus on individuals. I'm not saying that you should turn away those who come to you looking for Jesus, but what I am saying is not to neglect the best example that we have been given.

    Jesus's focus was to turn the disciples hearts to the Lord, not just get them to make a one time decision. 

Matthew 7:21-23 says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." 

Making disciples is not just a one conversation deal, it is coming alongside a new believer and helping them to navigate faith in a world that is so against it. We have to show others how to hear from God and how to see Him. Ultimately, God is not a being that we can see, that is hard for someone to grasp onto and continue to believe on their own without guidance. We get to come alongside others and show them how they can experience the presence of the Living God and lead them into a relationship with Him. 

    When coming alongside someone to disciple them, one of the most important things we can do is to get them into the Word, and to study the Word ourselves. There are two analogies that I want to share that helped me to put into perspective how important it is to spend time with the Lord. The first was, imagine you are walking up to the gates of Heaven, and you see your friend talking to God. You hear God say to them, "Truly, I never knew you.", your friend turns around, looks at you, and says, "You knew this the whole time and you didn't tell me?" To think of something like that happening to someone I love, someone I want to spend eternity with breaks my heart. Being a follower of Jesus goes further that making a one-time decision, it consists of a lifetime of decisions to spend time with Him, getting to know Him and His character more and more each day. You may have someone in your life that you thought of when you heard this, someone who believes in Jesus, but is still following the ways of the world. I encourage you to pray for them, to pray that they wouldn't be held by the standards of this world, but that they could let go and truly give themselves completely to the Lord.

    The second analogy is an analogy about getting into the Bible. Imagine you are picking out a gift for your friend. When you pick out a gift, you want it to be special and memorable. One of the first steps is to think about your friend and what they like. Then you have to decide what would be a good gift to give them based on their likes and interests. After that, you have to figure out where to find the gift, get the gift, wrap the gift, and finally give them the gift. Imagine if you had gone through all of this work and they didn't even open the gift. Imagine being on the other side as well, being handed a gift and not opening it. Imagine that gift is the Word of God. God spent years speaking to people, speaking through them and putting together His word so that His people would be able to read it. Imagine God handing you His Word. When I picture it like this, I can't help but want to open my Bible because I imagine God handing it to me. 

    We not only have to get into the word, but we also have to encourage those we are leading to the Lord to read it as well. It is our biggest tool in this world. the best resource that we have to connect with the Lord and to learn more about His character. A relationship with Jesus is more than asking for things to go a certain way. God knows everything that is going on in our lives and has given us the opportunity to get to know Him and who He is. 

    It takes one person to make an impact int he generations to come. Spend the time to get to know just one person, disciple them, get them into the word of God, and grow them to then say yes to The Great Commission. This is how we make Kingdom change.