Making Disciples

"Hey Big guy! How are you doing Sir? Im doing just fine.Thank you again for teaching me how to work with wood,drive a car,play x box and how to be strong, especialy when it comes to earthly fathers. You know my story,and by God bringing you into my life,having the same testimony, I was able to forgive my dad for all he did to me and my sibblings.It wasn't easy,but with such a great figure such as Jesus and then you,I was able to let go of that pain,anger,hatred and revenge! Please pray for me to be strong in the Lord, and help those who went through what I went through!"

The above is a note I received from Simon,one of the young men we were discipling in Namibia, Africa. We have shared often with you about Simon and he is in our latest video we posted. God brought him across our path and he has been a part of our lives ever since. Even though we are not able to live there we are still working with him and many others.

As we said in our last blog we want to share with you how easy it is to make disciples. There is nothing hard or complicated about it. You do not need a PhD or a certificate saying you are now qualified to make disciples. I smile as I write this because those are some of the excuses I used to give for not making disciples.

When you read what Simon wrote you see that what impacted his life is how we lived our lives before him. We worked, studied and played together. Each day was a day Simon saw Jesus in us. It is what he saw lived out in our lives, that has drawn him into a personal relationship with Jesus. Simon now knows that he has to be reaching those around him and is actively seeking how God will use him to reach his community.

Discipleship is not hard BUT it does require our time. For many of us we can come up with a whole list of excuses about how we do not have enough time to do the things we are doing now. My own list was quite long and that helped pacify me. The truth, though, is that Jesus gave you and I a command to make disciples, ("Therefore go and make disciples... Matthew 20:19,20".

We are to live our lives for Jesus, ("I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20"), and when we do live our lives for Him we cannot help but make disciples because it is our desire to make Him known.

Catherine and I are even more determined to make disciples. We had a rough 2014 but not even cancer can keep us from doing the work of the Father. Our plans for the year 2015 finds us very busy and we look forward to getting back to Africa to continue the discipleship. Being on staff with Keystone Project is opening the doors for us to work with disciples around the world. It seems like an impossible task and for us it would be but for God it is never impossible.

In Namibia we will continue to work with those we have discipled. We will provide support, additional training and encourage them in their making of disciples. We will be setting up training sessions for Richard Greene, President of Keystone Project, with pastors, missionaries, Christian leaders and whoever else has a heart for discipleship. Our network of friends and co-workers in Namibia will be useful as we set up trainings, and do follow up.  Already we are receiving email requests to visit Bible studies that our disciples have been conducting.  There is no greater joy then to hear one of your disciples ask for MORE...more teaching....more challenge...more training!  Simon and many others remain in our prayers and we are committed to helping them as they fulfill the GREAT COMMISSION!  Thank you for your prayers!

Getting Serious

In our last blog we talked about the importance of discipleship. In this blogs and many to follow we want to show and share how to disciple someone. We believe that anyone who calls themselves a Christ follower must be making disciples. If we are not making disciples we are not fulfilling the command that Christ gave to His disciples and to us.

As we said discipleship is lived out in our lives daily. If you are a follower of Christ answer this question. Do those around me see Christ in me? If you and I are honest we have to admit that the image that others see in us is not very Christ like.

We have fallen into the trap of the world and the image that people see the most in us is the image of the world. We want to have people like us, accept us and respect us. We value and cherish their opinion and will do almost anything to make sure we are liked, accepted and respected in their eyes.

Christ did not care about people liking, accepting or respecting Him. He cared only about what His Father thought of Him and everything Jesus did was for His Father. We have the Bible as our example of how He was treated. He was crucified because He would not conform to the world.

We heard a story today about a man who would tightrope across the Niagara Falls. People cheered him on and loved watching him. One time he asked the crowds if they believed he could push a wheel barrel across the Falls. They shouted out that they believed he could. He then asked for someone to volunteer to ride in the wheel barrel but no one would volunteer. No one truly believed because no one got into the wheel barrel.

We who call ourselves followers of Christ say with our mouths that we believe in Jesus Christ and that we would die for Him but when He asks us to get into the wheel barrel we do not because we do not fully believe.

What Catherine and I are doing is getting in the wheel barrel and we are trusting in Him. We are going to challenge others to not only say they believe but show that they believe. It is not hard and we are honored that He is using us to help make disciples.

The first thing we need to do is make sure we are in a position where God can use us. Start with praying Psalm 139:23,24 "23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Second stop and listen to what the Holy Spirit says to you. If there is anything at all, big or small, He points out to you, that must be dealt with first. None of us are perfect and never will be but we must be continually working on drawing closer to Him and living for Him. We can only begin making disciples of Christ once we are living a life that makes our Father proud.

Third pray that God will show you who He wants you to disciple. Once He shows you who that person is do not wait, go to that person