July 3, 2013
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 28:16-20
OBSERVATIONS/APPLICATION
After all this, after all they saw and heard and experienced… some still had their doubts.
I don’t feel so bad now, knowing that when I doubt I am in good company.
Jesus came for a specific time and purpose: He came to start something, but He wants our help.
He initiates the victory over sin, death and hell, but we must implement it.
Our task is to demonstrate the victory and to spread the word… to be disciples and to make disciples.
This is the heart of being a Christian, not just believing something, but doing something with what we believe.
Our confidence is that Jesus is Lord, our comfort is that He is with us; anchored between these our calling is to let the whole world see and know, and enter into this new life.
How am I being a disciple, what has changed in my life that reveals that I follow and obey Jesus?
How am I making disciples, where am I intentionally going to be with others who do not yet know Him, and helping them see, experience, hear and understand Who He is, what His message is?
Not making church members, not promoting or advancing my church agenda or mission, but doing what it takes to show and to share the love of Jesus.
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, I do not yet have this mindset clear. Being a disciple-making disciple is not the focus of my life. Help me get this into my head, my heart, my life. Remind me that You are with me always, through it all.
Observations:
The disciples followed the instructions given – both those who believed and those who doubted. There He gave the Great Commission – to be ‘proclaimers’ of the Good News and He promised that He would be with them always.
Application:
God’s Word, God’s instructions comes to His people – those who are strong and those who are weak – but His Word comes. Do this and live – forevermore. In following the Great Commission the Great Community is developed and that Great Community encourages those who are weak. Jesus speaks to ALL His people and together they make the body of Christ doing His will.
Prayer:
Lord, help Your people to be accepting of one another and to do one-anothering. Make me an instrument of Your peace.
1. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love;
Where there is injury, your healing pow’r,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
2. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, – only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
3. O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consolded as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul – .
4. Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.