As a signpost pointing to Jesus, we also need to have a walk that imitates Jesus. To make that happen, Jesus invites us into a relationship with Him. And that should change how we live and how we play and how we work.
Bill Hull:
I am to live as though Jesus is living in me. If Jesus were a plumber, what kind of plumber would He be? If He were an attorney, what kind of attorney would He be? If He were an accountant, teacher, business owner, what kind of person would He be?
In What Direction Is Your Signpost Pointed?
Robby Gallaty:
Discipleship has an end goal: to be conformed into the image of Christ—to talk the way he talked, walk the way he walked, and respond the way he responded. It begins with an unshakeable allegiance to Jesus…
To make disciples effectively, we must first recognize that a disciple is one who is pursued by Christ, has been found and called by him, and has made the decision to follow him. As a disciple-maker, all you’re doing is pointing at the One you’re following and saying to those around you, “Come with me; I’m following him.”
We are each to be a signpost pointing to Jesus.
Is your signage clear or is it confusing?
Are you telling the people around you, “Come with me; I’m following Jesus”?
Who in your life has been needing to hear that statement from you?
The Skill of Elimination – removing the things from your life that are negatively affecting your spiritual growth.
(And again, Facebook automation now only provides an excerpt, and so those FBers who want the full article will have to follow the link to my website. The best alternative would be to sign up for the email which sends the full article directly to your inbox. You can do that by clicking here. What Do You Need To Erase From Your Life?
Now back to the skill of elimination.
Continuing with the idea of the last few posts on discipleship, I want to remind you that Discipleship & Disciple-Making are key commands of Jesus.
You know that the 2 Greatest Commandments are:
1. Love God with all you have, and
2. Love others as yourself.
The way we are to accomplish these 2 commands is through obedience to the Great Commission, which Jesus stated as: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”
Therefore, if this is Jesus’ Commission to us, then we each need to have an answer for how we are obeying it. We should be able to answer these two questions:
Who is discipling me? and
Who am I discipling?
Who is intentionally helping you to grow in love and obedience to Jesus?
Who are you intentionally helping to do the same?
In Robby Gallaty’s book, Rediscovering Discipleship, he shares a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Gallaty goes on to say that this kind of evaluation is very difficult because it removes what you want and reveals what God wants. And we know that God wants us to be discipled and be discipling others. Therefore, this means that some of us may need to think seriously about eliminating some activities in our lives so that we can experience the very best that Jesus wants for us.
We need to develop the skill of elimination and continually ask ourselves:
What do I need to eliminate from my life to be obedient to Jesus in the area of being discipled and being a disciple-maker?
As often happens in life, I find that things are not quite as easy as I had hoped. In re-starting my posts, some things have changed with the tools I use to publish posts. I fixed the error that occurred with my email recipients, but in a similar way, Facebook is now only giving an excerpt and a link, not the full article like it used to do. I’m looking for a fix, but until I find one, it means that any Facebook followers who want to see the full article will have to follow the link to my website. I apologize for the inconvenience! The best alternative if you want to get the full article without having to follow the link would be to sign up for the email which sends the full article directly to your inbox. You can do that by clicking here.
And if you have been on this journey with me for the past few years, you are probably asking yourself: when will his posting taper off? Will it be in one week or two? You may be surprised! You’ll get at least 52 this year, and here’s how I know for sure…
While I have had some difficulty in the past finding time to post regularly, this year I decided I would not post anything until I got at least 52 posts ready! And so that’s what I did. I plan to send out two a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), which will take us through one-half of the year.
When did I find time to put together 52 posts at once? Well, it was during my sinus infection that kept me at home for several days around Christmas. (And yes, I did write many of them while on medicine! I tell you this so you can give me some grace on the weird ones!) If we get to the end of 52 posts and then they suddenly stop, then just pray that I get another sinus infection to crank out another set! Just kidding – please don’t pray that for anybody!
In my previous post, I mentioned to you that our Disciple-Groups started with personal prayer needs and that doing so required transparency on our part.
Even so, sometimes we don’t quite know where to start. Therefore, we use the following guide to help us share personal prayer needs.
The reason I’m sharing them with you, is that these are not just good for giving others information on how to pray for you, but it can also give you guidance on how to pray for yourself. Read through them one time, and then go back through them praying for each one that applies to your life.
For which of these items do you need the most prayer right now?
a. Your relationship with God?
i. Personal Daily Bible Reading
ii. Personal Prayer Life
iii. Personal Purity
b. Your relationship with your spouse?
i. Face-to-Face Time together
ii. Prayer/devotional time together (other than meals & family devotions)
c. Your relationship with your children?
i. Prayer/devotional time together (other than meals)
ii. Walking and talking time together
d. Your relationship with your coworkers?
i. Workplace Pastor Role
ii. Planting Seeds of the Gospel to those who work around you
We also ask that each person will share how God is leading them, and the following questions can help provide you ways to answer. These can provide you with additional guidance on how to pray for yourself, and how to ask others to pray for you.How would you answer each one?
a. What good habit or character trait do you feel God wants to form in your life?
And how have you taken specific steps to develop that habit?
b. How are you leading your family to be closer to the Lord?
c. As a “workplace pastor,” how are you leading your coworkers to be closer to the Lord?
d. What is God presently telling you to do & what are you doing about it?
e. How have you turned a conversation toward Christ since our last meeting?
f. How has the Bible shaped the way you think and live since our last meeting?
g. What opportunities did God give you to serve others since our last meeting?
h. How have you received a specific answer to a prayer since our last meeting?
In my previous post, I shared the commitments of our FBC Newton Discipleship-Groups. Along with those commitments, what actually happens when the group meets? One important aspect is sharing personal prayer needs.
By Personal Prayer Needs, we mean prayer requests that you have for yourself or for your immediate family (as in the people who live in the house with you). Most of us are good at sharing the prayer needs of other people around us, but we are seldom transparent about what we need prayer for the most in our own lives. Being honest and transparent in this way takes trust. That trust is more easy to develop in a small D-group than in a Sunday School class of 12 people.
We believe that prayer is effective at changing lives, and so we ask for Personal Prayer Needs and then we take the time to pray together for one another.
Are you sharing personal prayer needs with anyone in your life? Or do you keep all of those to yourself? Who Can You Get To Join You In Praying For Your Personal Prayer Needs?
In conjunction with these prayer needs, we then ask for each person to share what God has been teaching them through their Bible reading. This is where we share what we have written down that God has been teaching us. This could be something challenging, helpful, interesting, or difficult from your Bible reading. Again, these are also often a form of prayer needs, as someone might say, “As I was reading this passage about controlling the tongue, God pointed out to me to watch how I talk to my wife. I have been pretty harsh lately.” This becomes an additional transparent prayer need that we can pray for as a group.
As we read God’s Word, we ask each person to ask: “What applications can I find in the passage to help me live for Christ more consistently?”
One way you can do this is to use C.A.S.E. to find application points. As you read the Bible, look for:
C – Commands to obey
A – Attitudes to change
S – Sins to avoid or confess
E – Examples to follow
Then we pray to end our meeting, asking God to help us apply something specific that we have discussed/discovered in our meeting.
As I wrote previously, I will say again: You need this in your life!
You need to be discipled by others and you need to be discipling others.
That is the calling on your life to “Go and make disciples” that Jesus commanded of you.
Are you reading your Bible with a view toward how to apply it to your life? The Bible gives us clear application of how to live in a way to bring glory to our great God.
Who do you have in your life that you are able to share personal prayer needs with? Who do you know is truly committed to praying for you? Who can you ask to pray for you regarding the applications you are gaining from your Bible reading? There are people out there who are willing to be in a group with you to do this. If you aren’t sure who they are, begin praying now that God will point them out to you, and then invite those two or three people to start a group with you.
