When you decide to be a nurse or a doctor or a lawyer, you go to school, first. You understand that this job is going to require a knowledge base and a skill set that I currently do not have and need to gain in order to function in this role properly, and well.

I would be unqualified, unequipped, and would hurt lots of people if I showed up to work with no training or education. 

So are the things of being a Christian. 

I am not talking only to those who have a call to ministry, like a preacher or missionary, here. I’m talking about the extraordinary, mundane lives of every single believer who accepts Jesus…every one of you that’s like me.

Every one of us is commissioned.

We are to make disciples. 

Yes, We. 

In our homes as mamas, in our role as wife, in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our cities, in our state, and in our nation. 

In the hospitals. 

In political circles. 

In the sciences and the arts and the universities. 

Every single one of us is called to go and tell them about Jesus if you believe and receive Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord.

That’s why we have to go to our bibles to be schooled at night, early in the mornings before work, on our lunch break, or when the baby’s napping.

It’s our responsibility to show up for class. To make the time.

Don’t mistake Fellowship for Discipleship

Don’t do what I did.

Don’t ignore the concepts of discipleship. 

Do not just go to the new believers class, get a Bible, promise you’ll read it, get baptized, join a small group (if they have enough spots to let you in), sign up to serve and leave no time for you to get to know the one who saved you to begin with… Jesus Christ the Nazarene.

That church did not save you.

Jesus did.

Don’t skip personal, intimate discipleship for the small group community belonging and all the activities at the church that keep us so busy.

Your service to others in the community and at church is vital and very important… but it’s not more important than your relationship to your Maker, nor should it come before that relationship is developed and growing. 

Absolutely, people will help you grow.

The right ones will function as iron sharpening you… they will help you see what you can’t see when you’re trying to grow. These people that God wants you to grow with are the ones pointing you to your very own Bible. They will loving ensure that you are putting in the time in the quiet, praying, studying, pursuing Him alone. 

There are also people that go to church to play church. They want the groups and the community of belonging and the people to call their own, but are not interested in much personal discipleship and personal growth in the things of God. These folks can be dangerous to those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, so be sure you ask God to put the people you need in your life to grow you.

Be picky.

Small groups and community service are intended to be a ‘want-to’ from God, an automatic byproduct of a thriving love relationship with Jesus Christ. When your love relationship with Jesus is thriving, you will have that ‘want-to,’ I can testify to that.

But until then, go home and read your Bible. 

Study. 

Rest under good sound preaching and doctrine, and feast with two spoons on God’s amazing word.

The truths of God’s word are spiritual, but there are very practical basics we need to understand about God, about His kingdom that is not like this world, to really build upon.

Graduate from Milk, for Meat

We start out in our understanding in the things of scripture with milk, like a baby.

We need it, it contains everything we must have, it’s simple and easy to break down, and it is vital to our nourishment.

However, just like the growing up and advancement of a baby’s diet from milk, to stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, then solid foods, there comes a time when we no longer exist to consume milk as believers.

We ought to be maturing and growing in knowledge every single day.

We ought to graduate to holding our own fork, to be able to eat a steak, using our own knife to cut it. We ought to be able to chew and digest it out with the help of Jesus in our quiet time… we ought to feel the physical and spiritual strength it gives us to get up and go!

God intended we primarily grow with Him. We should mature enough to where we no longer need the pastor to be our ‘mother bird’ to digest the things of the scriptures because we cannot understand, but to enjoy sitting under his covering and teaching to help us stay on track and not get off in the weeds.

We ought to all be some type of teachers by now, sitting under the preachings, the Word for 39 + years… yet so many of us are not able…something is very wrong and I’m a prime example.

I missed this in church. 

I missed this discussion or this discipleship class that taught me how the Bible is laid out and why. 

I don’t want you to miss it.

(1 Corinthians 3:2, Hebrews 5:12-14, 1 Peter 2:2)

“Build Your House on the Rock,” – Jesus Christ

Jesus told us to build our house on the rock.

Friend, the wind, the floods, the rains of life are coming, they’ve already started.

Don’t build on the sand. 

Stop.

Slow your roll. 

Confront the lie of busyness and don’t let it steal from you the solid foundation of Jesus and your relationship with Him, and for your generations to come.

Make sure your house stands strong and does not fall. 

Do it for your kids. 

Make sure it’s founded on the rock of Jesus Christ. 

(Matthew 7:24-27)

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