Last week I sent out an email to my readers asking them to share their number one problem when it comes to making disciples. I received many, many emails. A number of different themes came up as I read through them. One thing that particularly stood out to me was the number of people who felt personally responsible for the people they were discipling either losing interest or turning away from God.
It is important that we recognize and own ‘our part’ in the discipleship process. But it is equally important to recognize that we alone don’t carry the full responsibility for it.
The truth is there are three roles in the discipleship process. There is our role, their (the disciples) role, and God’s role. The key truth is that we can only take responsibility for our own part.
Now I am certainly not saying that we can’t grow and get better at what we do. We can. But there are a number of possible reasons for why a person might not respond positively to the gospel message, or to our encouragement or direction. For instance – in the case of witnessing to a lost person, perhaps we were trying to force something on the person that God was not in on. I’m not saying that God wants anyone to be lost – he doesn’t. But He does know each person’s heart. We may be only one in a series of steps they will go through before they surrender to God. Or it could be that God IS working in their heart, but they are the one holding back refusing to respond.
We even have an example in the Bible of this happening to Jesus. In Matthew 19:16-22, a rich young man came and asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, knowing the young mans heart, responded to him with truth and love, putting his finger right on the problem. The young man didn’t respond to the offer to become a disciple of Jesus. He chose to keep what he knew and was comfortable with rather than follow Jesus. Had Jesus failed because the man didn’t follow Him? Had he done His part perfectly? I trust you know that answer to those questions.
God is not dependent on our perfection to win someone He is working on. He is also not dependent on us to disciple someone perfectly. #discipleship Share on XGod is not dependent on our perfection to win someone He is working on. He is also not dependent on us to disciple someone perfectly. Here is where we go wrong. We forget that the people we disciple are not our disciples; they are Jesus’. He will never stop working on them.
We forget that the people we disciple are not our disciples; they are Jesus'. He will never stop working on them. #discipleship Share on XSo don’t let Satan tell you that you are not good enough, smart enough, or spiritual enough to disciple someone. We can’t do the other persons part and we certainly can’t do God’s part. We can only do our part. And God has and will equip us for the work He has called us to do.
Thank you. It is good to be reminded of this.
-I think, in terms of being relational, that a person -a believer in Christ- should be like “what use to be, ‘a well rounded university student upon graduation: able to both see and speak in terms of many things on and about society.’ ” We are -using the Scriptures through us as the Living Word of God given to us, become able ‘to be able to rightly divide for all’ topics and situations in this world, “just what the Holy Spirit has to say relationally from the love of God/love of Christ for each of them.”[In order to personally come to Christ Himself and thereby salvation is recognized.]
…Sometimes I wonder if disciples should just be citizens of the Word, where the Holy Spirit works in us personally and through us personally (with the gospel message for all)…without a diagramatical illustration on ‘how one should get there, to being a disciple in Christ, free-flowing through us: His unconditional love.’ For as the Spirit moves through life in this world, so too is our individual ‘place’ before Yahweh God: an individual ‘part’ of the Body of Christ…and why we work out our assured eternal salvation in fear and trembling (Phil.2:12), before a loving Almighty.
-The Bible itself, in terms of eternity and eternal measures seems much larger than we admit we give seemingly only to our salvation and promises here…Something that seems to never be acknowledged by believers and therefore a lot of believers have trouble getting beyond a set of re-assuring promises for their faith(fulness), as opposed to developing the sense of eternity here and now _with_ their God-given faith, in order to be truly active believers, in my opinion (and we’re not talking about some type of gnosticism here).