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July 21 - November 22, 2022
“If you knew the answer to this question, would it make any difference in your relationship with Jesus Christ?”
you might suggest that the real and important questions center around getting to know God in a personal way.
The Gospel is the good news that God can change an individual. This good news is based on the assumption that each person’s needs can be met. In evangelism, therefore, one of the first objectives is to get the person to expose his need.
Suppose you are walking down the street and a stranger appears from nowhere, grabs hold of you, and says, “You look sick. Come with me into my office, and I will operate on you and make you feel better.” What do you think your response would be? I would probably flee as fast as I could. We must be careful not to be guilty of the same approach in evangelism. It is probably not the best approach to walk up to a stranger and say something to the effect, “Do you want to be saved?” Rather, concentrate on getting to know the person. Ask probing questions even before you begin to engage him in a
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If we hedge on things we know to be true, then we convey to our listeners a lack of trust in our own convictions.
My friend said, “Well, that’s interesting. I have more in common with my Catholic friends than I do with many of my Protestant friends.” That simple statement was enough to bridge a potential argument and allow the conversation to continue.
In pursuing the real issue, we must lovingly point out that the question is not so much, “What about people who have not heard?” but rather, “What will you do with Jesus Christ now that you have heard?”
As you read through the story, you notice that salvation became her idea, not just His. She ended up truly wanting it. He did not push it on her.
A beautiful illustration of this is found in Acts 2:36–38. Peter had just finished his great sermon at Pentecost. He gave no invitation. He did not tell his audience what to do. He merely ended with a divine claim—Jesus was the Christ. But what he said shook them; and because the Spirit of God was working in their hearts, salvation became their idea, not Peter’s. They took the initiative, asking, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
When you talk to people about Christ, you can often tell where they are by their changing view of who He is.
Jesus said that His food was to do God’s will. This is what concerned Him, what was uppermost in His mind. He told His disciples, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest” (John 4:34–35). Jesus does not say here that He is exercising His gifts or that He really loves to talk to people about their eternal destiny. He simply says that He is doing the will of God.
People shun evangelism because they say it is not their strength, it is not their gift, or they do not enjoy doing it. I can certainly empathize with that. Evangelism is engaging the enemy in what the Bible calls “spiritual warfare.” It means fighting the forces of darkness for the souls of people. Let’s face it: few people enjoy fighting.
The only relevant question is whether it is the will of God—and we know from the Scriptures that the will of God is for us to do the work of evangelism. The disciple’s ministry begins with evangelism.
There is strong competition today to gain peoples’ allegiance.
Into this arena of competition step the bold claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
As ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we are in the business of recruiting men and women to a life of discipleship.
An organization, however great it may be, is never highest in God’s value system. God gives a vision. An organization must serve this vision. It can never be the vision.
The disciple must be careful never to preach faithfulness in order to make his organization more successful.
If we emphasize meeting peoples’ spiritual needs, the chances are that membership numbers will take care of themselves.
There is, nonetheless, a fundamental truth suggested here: when we, in our ministry, exalt the person of Jesus Christ, men will be drawn to Him.
On numerous occasions in various dormitories and military barracks, I have confronted young men with the claims of Jesus Christ. Inevitably, when I meet someone and tell him I would like to talk with him about Christ, his reply is, “What denomination are you with?” Have we brainwashed the non-Christian world into believing that we are more interested in recruiting people to our particular denomination than we are to the person of Jesus Christ?
It is so easy to fall into the trap of asking people to be faithful to pet programs rather than to the will of God.
The people wanted to crown Him as their king, but Jesus, sensing that their motives were impure, countered with some honest but hard-hitting observations.
I do not believe that the Lord Jesus was feeling sorry for Himself. No, our Lord Jesus was once again underlining the cost involved in being His disciple.
Getting involved with God has always been on a volunteer basis. Irrespective of how great the need—and the need is great—Christ will not sacrifice quality in order to gain quantity. As His ambassadors, neither can we.
Our Savior feels honored and privileged to have us committed as His disciples, but God forbid that we should feel that we are doing Him a favor in being faithful.
if we cannot staff our programs with the right kind of people, then we should seriously think about terminating the programs. I believe that there is one thing worse than not having any program at all, and that is having a program with the wrong type of leadership.
Grow into Business—Don’t Go into Business This principle teaches us that we should start small and build in depth rather than concentrate on becoming large and, as a result, end up being top-heavy. When you try to go into business rather than grow into business, you spread your resources thin and dissipate your efforts (see Prov. 24:27). Let’s say that you and I decided that we wanted to go deer hunting together, and our objective was to bag as many deer as we could. Early one morning, we find ourselves at the edge of a large clearing where thirty to forty deer are grazing. We have two guns
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We must be extremely careful not to recruit people to use them. Our goal should be to help them,
When the Lord Jesus met the rich young ruler, He told him to give away his wealth to the poor and then come and follow Him. The Savior was not trying to use the young man by asking him to lend support to the ministry; rather, He was trying to meet the man’s need—the first step being to divorce himself from his inordinate affection for wealth.
Prayerfully determine what the person you are helping needs and then help him in that area rather than finding out what he ca...
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The time will come when we will want to maximize his gifts and abilities, but in the initial stages of the discipling pr...
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Our Lord Jesus is far more interested in what a person is tha...
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This is not so in the Christian life. The Bible teaches that our involvement in Christ’s army is strictly on a volunteer basis—a person can leave anytime he wants.
For the sake of simplicity, let me suggest that development can be categorized into three areas: teaching, training, and building.
I will define teaching as the imparting of knowledge, training as the imparting of skill, and building as the imparting of character.
Do a Bible study on a character trait that is lacking in his life. Help him see God’s perspective on the matter. • Create an environment in which the desired character trait is evident. If he stays in an environment in which evangelism is evident, then it is more likely that he will embrace it as a conviction of his own. • Most important, pray the character trait into his life.
Scripture says that Jesus “kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52) Here we see the four areas of our Savior’s development as a young man: WISDOM—the intellect STATURE—the physical IN FAVOR WITH GOD—the spiritual IN FAVOR WITH MAN—the social
The Lord did not say that people will know that you are His disciple by the number of verses you memorize, or by the frequency with which you attend church, or by the number of people that you lead to Christ. He says, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.” But this love must be blended with rebuke. Possibly one of the greatest weaknesses in the body of Christ today is that we have surrendered our responsibility to discipline one another. Solomon in all of his wisdom was directly to the point on this subject when he said, “Better is open rebuke
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A friend once shared with me that his application from studying that passage in Proverbs was to pray that God would cause at least one person each week to rebuke him on some area of his life that needed attention. That’s quite a challenge, isn’t it?
reprove a wise man and he will love you...
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Quite often, the reason people do not rebuke us is that they are af...
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People are drawn into discipleship by giant doses of love. But if love is to come across as biblical love, it must be blended with rebuke. The kind of people God can use are those who respond to such a blend; Jesus cannot use people who feel sorry for themselves when corrected.
The mark of leadership is servanthood.
All of us like to be pampered and waited on, but few of us like to roll up our sleeves and wait on others.
All of us who know God’s Word like to be called servants, but none of us wants to act like a servant or to be treated like one. We must recognize this tendency, which is based in human pride, and fend against it.
he will become what you are, not what you say.
It is imperative, therefore, that you major on being the kind of person you want your disciple to become.
Aggressive evangelism is the mark of the committed disciple,
In physical reproduction, the responsible parents’ task only begins when the child is born. Afterward come years of careful nurture and training to ensure that the child develops to the point where he can marry and assume responsibility for his own family.
