Disciples making disciples

Jesus last orders crashed on the disciple’s ears as they stood on the Mt of Olives “Go and make Disciples…”, but it seems often the same words bounce off deaf ears in the church today.  We say we want a harvest but we won’t sow the field; we say we love the lost but we don’t spend any time with them.  We think prayer alone will bring in the sheaves or that tearless sowing of seeds will penetrate the stony ground.   We work harder and even try to work smarter but the days tick by and we wonder where the increase is. Often we are waiting for one to be given to us after the altar call or we wait to be asked to follow up a new believer in the church.  We’re trying to make disciples in the wrong places. Go into all the world and make disciples means into all nations.  For the Jewish disciples it meant gentiles; people unlike them, and for us, it means people not like us.  That is the genius of this command; they are shocked straightaway at your concern or interest.   Jesus chose his disciples before they had become Christians and we should too. He chose some to be with him when they were unsaved!   If everyone chose and made a disciple of someone that is not like us, we would see the harvest begin to come in and it may still take time. When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples they started preaching and making disciples.  When Jesus came out of the wilderness, in the power of the spirit, the first thing he did was chose disciples; then he started preaching.

Friend, the evidence of being in the power of the Spirit is choosing and making disciples.  It not feeling goosebumps; it’s not having gifts of healing its making disciples.