Growing Personally

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.

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You can have relief and still not have peace. You can leave home to get away from your parents and find relief but in your heart, you may still not have peace. You can have an argument with your wife then go and play golf. You may have relief but not peace. We might tiptoe around the house in silence for a day. We have a truce but we don’t have peace. Real peace always begins with spiritual peace. That is where the world misses it. They want to go from trouble to peace and bypass the Prince of peace. They want peace but don’t want the source of peace. Spiritual peace: the peace that God came to give us, is always a result of something else, called righteousness. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Rom 14 .17. We may find ways to cope a little better. There may be a way to mitigate some of our troubles and they could satisfy temporarily but till righteousness enters the heart of men, there can never be true peace. And unfortunately, this is why there is little you can do for broken families robbed of peace in so many ways, till they are ready to do it Gods way. We all have to lay down sin and our pride and our lives before Jesus and receive his forgiveness and righteousness.

Friend, where ever there is no peace, but friction, anger, wars, hatred or lack of peace in our hearts or home, workplace or nation, it is always a lack of righteousness, but thank God that is something he is willing to give us.

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Jesus shouldered the heavy cross and staggered along after the Roman soldiers. It wasn’t the first cross that Jesus had faced. As a minister, He had put others needs before His own, and made a thousand selfless choices before he finally took up the final and greatest cross for us. Embracing the Cross is really dying to a self so as to bring life and blessing to others. Jesus embraced the cross among the ancient olive trees as he was tested with the will of God which He ultimately held fast to. To be under Christ’s authority means to be a follower of Jesus. It means to accept the Cross daily and die to self. Jesus said that anybody that wanted to follow Him had to first deny himself and take up his cross. Our submission to God is not tested, till the cross is presented. Jesus was submitted to the will of God at all times but it was supremely tested in the garden. The cross tests or willingness to be a Christian and a follower of Christ. There can be no cross-less followers. No one following the lamb! We have this idea that disciples are one step up the ecosystem of believer or Christians. We need to destroy this notion. Christians and disciples are to be the same people.

Friend, if you are a Christian; you are a disciple and it is only possible to follow Jesus if we carry our cross.

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Adam felt incredible shame and guilt as he heard the steps of the Creator in the garden. He hid in the trees but where can you hide from Love. If we learn anything from the theology of Genesis 3, it is that imperfection and failure run in the family. Even the perfect specimens are tainted with it; those prim and proper people who never seem to blow up perhaps struggle with pride and judgmental pettiness. The fact is we all fail. If we don’t give ourselves and others room to fail, we will breed dishonestly in people. People will be afraid to admit their mistakes, choosing to live in unreality. Brothers or sisters that are struggling with certain fears and temptations will be afraid to reach out for help. God’s people may sink in a sea of failure and temptation, not able to ask for help, thinking that weakness or failure is unforgivable. It’s great to have a triumphalist theology, where we talk of a constant walk in the glory and power of God, but where does that leave people in the times when they struggle and need help. When we fail, we must know that God is still able to use even that! Before Adam failed he felt perfect without any sense of sin and no need for forgiveness. He also felt no gratitude for God’s mercy and no sense of love. God allowed men to sin that man might discover all of God.

Friend, if we fail or stumble in sin, God still has a plan in mind. For us to see our own inability and our need to abide in His love. He wants us to experience His forgiveness, and then see His loving character and to love Him even more in return.

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I used to work at the city council where there was a man in our section, who often used to say “success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.” Everyone wants to claim they played a part in something that was successful but when something is a disaster or fails, nobody wants to own it. We might talk about failure in hushed tones but everybody does it. Teacher and students, cops and crooks, parents and children all fail. Doctors fail and they bury their mistakes! Nobody likes to fail but everybody does sometimes. In Gen 3.10 we find that failure is part of the human race. Moses failed in understanding when he sought to save the Israelites. He rose up in anger, killed an Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Samson failed morally and David failed the temptation test. Peter denied that he knew Jesus, and wept bitterly later as he thought about his lack of courage and loyalty. Probably like me, you have come to church some weeks with a small or large library of failures from the past week, and some even added that morning.

Friend, failure has been a part of the human experience for a long time but stop and think; did their failure stop them being used by God and becoming an eventual success? No they all finally did the will of God. Some of them not in spite of their failure but because of their failure, as it made them more aware of their need for God.

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The rugby coach asked the team to run another five lengths of the field. He knows that although training is not popular, it is only the hard yards that will prepare them for the rigors of the games to come. He is training them for the challenges of the future. It always takes discipline to maximize our potential. No one loved us like our own father, so we know when they disciplined us it was because they loved us. The discipline of children is not done to them but it is done for them. Discipline helps children grow in obedience and respect. Without obedience and respect in society, there is no civil order only anarchy. That is the reason why God tells fathers, to train the next generation to obey, honour and respect authority. Child discipline builds a sense of justice; it also removes guilt, develops their sense of right and wrong and gives boundaries and security.

Deuteronomy says that God disciplines his children, for the same reason. The discipline of the wilderness was to prepare them to enter the land. It doesn't matter how much we turn up the volume at church or how high we jump in the worship, if we aren't people that fear God or have not been trained to live at our potential, we may not enjoy the fullness of what God intends.

Friend, Father God may discipline us, but it will enable us to enter the inheritance and the better future He plans for us.

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The wilderness stretched out in front of the people of Israel for miles, as they walked through the desert on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land. It was harsh, empty and cold at night, and it was hot during the day, but there was no alternative. In the wilderness, they were to learn to observe the word of God, and not to observe everything else around them. It was a place that tested their hearts to see whether they would obey God's Word. In the wilderness, God gave them manna they didn’t know so they would come to understand they could not live on the bread they already knew. To see that the things of this world, that they knew, were not what gave them life. The Manna was a type of Jesus Christ. It was free, pure, from heaven and tasted good, but it had to be gathered daily and eaten daily to be enjoyed. As they picked up Manna every day, they learned to obey and they learned to trust God. They learned to do things Gods way and they learned to do the difficult. When they came out of Egypt as slaves, they thought of themselves as poor, man dependent, and bound by natural limitations but as they learned to walk in God's ways they learned that they were wealthy enough, to have a day off every week, that dependence upon God meant the impossible could happen and that God can remove human limitations.

Friend, like the Israelites we have to learn that Gods ways are different. We need to learn that he is for us and leading us into a life of unrestricted, heaven-sent, limitless possibilities.

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Moses stood before the nation to repeat the promises of God, to the new generation that would fight their way in the land. They would be the generation that got a breakthrough, into the promises of God. Moses was convinced they could do it. I know you will breakthrough. I know you will take the land from the enemy but if you don't obey the word of God once you are in the land and live God's way, you may not be able to maintain possession of the land. A “breakthrough generation” has to be more than louder music and stronger shouts of praise. There needs to be a strong character, a strong home life, a strong marriage, a strong work ethic and a strong personal life. The breakthrough generation will be people of faith and passion but they will also live with a commitment to the principles of God's Word in their family and their finances. If they don't know how to live right every day, they may enjoy days of victory but not be able to maintain their victory. It is just as important that our marriage is a testimony as our miracles are. For our family to be as much a testimony as our faith and our finances should be as sound as our fervour for God.

Friend, the way we do live in the community is more testimony than the way we do communion. Moses said the nations were going to take note because they were a wise and understanding people, not just a noisy excited people.

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