Category Archives: Discipleship

His Disciple: Return

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

The concept of returning to God is called “repentance” (teshuvah). It is one of the most important messages of the Bible. Repentance is a central thrust of Yeshua’s teaching and the Gospel imperative. Yeshua’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). What is true repentance? Return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 30:2) – Nitzavim-Vayelech: The Greatness of Repentance

Return to the Lord your God… was God’s call of repentance to His people, because sin (primarily idolotry) had turned them away from Him. With Jesus, God had come near to the “lost sheep of Israel”, and was calling them to repent. To turn from their sin and their idols and turn back to Him.

And here we are today and I wonder if we still hear the call of repentance, to return to Him. In my western church world, we repent when we commit a sin, which isn’t wrong theology, just incomplete, I think. Because I find that when our heart wanders, the solution given is to spend more time with Jesus, more time praying, more time reading His Word. Again, not bad things, but going through the motions of worship with an idolotrous heart is not repentance. We must return, not with our activities, but with a heart that grieves the sin that created the distance between us and Him.

It means leaving every idol behind. The things we have turned to for comfort, for help in our time of need, including ourselves. Our self-help Christianity is a lie, we are not the masters of our own fate. We cannot get better by trying harder. We cannot manifest the life we want. A better job, bigger house, or another diploma isn’t going to fill the void that is left when we turn from God.

God isn’t just a means to make our life better, He is our life. To think otherwise calls for repentance. To believe that we can make our way in this world, calling the shots and living our best life all while claiming to follow Jesus, calls for repentance.

Choosing to believe man-made theology that makes sense to us and makes us feel good about Christianity, but is contrary to what the Word of God has spoken, needs repentance. When we form our faith around what we think God should be like, we have made a god in our own image and it calls for repentance.

If we try to love everyone around us without first loving God (the one true God), then we need to repent. The greatest commandment is to love God with our whole selves, and THEN, we love our neighbor as ourself. To think we can love others without loving God first turns our ability to love into an idol.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.“

It is not harsh, it is loving. It is God saying to us, come back. The problem might be that we are unaware of our own wandering. For that, I pray.

Father, open our eyes that we might see if we have moved our hearts away from You, and from truth. I pray that true repentance will come to mark us, Your people. I pray You will pursue every sheep that has wandered away, and that as our good Shepherd, You will protect us from the wolf that seeks to destroy us.

May all who have wandered, return.

Thanks for reading! See you next time.

His Disciple: An Enemy We Cannot Ignore

“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.” – Luke 4:1-2

He exists, and he is evil, and there is great danger in pretending otherwise. Don’t listen to whatever or whoever tells you that he isn’t real, or that he isn’t a threat. 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

The battle is not against people, but we have certainly made it so, haven’t we? We are prone to leaning toward what we can see and touch rather than what lives in the places we cannot see. Hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. It’s easier to make it about one another. Spouses, parents, siblings, neighbors, politicians… they all become who we wrestle, who we see as the enemy. But God’s word could not be more clear. Flesh and blood is not in the ring with us, so we’d better learn to fight what is in the ring.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. – 1Peter 5:8

When we are unaware, we are easy prey. There is no other way to take this scripture. Again, we have an adversary that is not of flesh and blood, and he is not just out to make life hard for us, he seeks our destruction. He wants to destroy our relationships—with people and with God—and he wants to destroy our faith. To render us hopeless, trusting only ourselves and our own wisdom and strength.

We must wake up and sober up so that we are not devoured.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. – 2Corinthians 11:13-14

There have always been false teachers plaguing the Church. Wolves dressed like not only sheep, but like shepherds! I cannot think of a better advertisement for knowing the Word of God. Wolves don’t come in just to pick off the weak sheep. They come in to lead the entire flock astray, if possible. To sow lies, twist the Word, and in so doing convince the people of God to create a god in their own image. The wolves are real and scripture admonishes the Church to recognize them and deal with them, not ignore them.

Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices. – 2Corinthians 2:10-11

Don’t miss it – unforgiveness is a device used by Satan. Our inability, or unwillingness to forgive turns us bitter, not loving. It keeps us in pride, rather than humility. It imitates man, not God, and it destroys unity.

There is a reason that Peter asked Jesus how many times we have to forgive our brother. In our humanity, we have a sense of justice that differs from that of Jesus. We also have pride that keeps us looking for a way out of forgiving someone, rather than a way into it. That pride is stoked in the fires of hell, not the justice of heaven.

The bible is not shy about the theology of the devil, but there are many people “masquerading” as sheep who are attempting to remove that theology, including the truth about hell. Leading many astray into thinking that there will be no judgement, and no punishment for those who chose to reject Christ and salvation. If you remove the judgement, you remove any need for salvation. Any need to bend our knee to Jesus, and it is unto our destruction, which is the very goal of the enemy that so many are ignoring or, worse, believing does not exist.

If we are a disciple of Jesus, then His enemy is our enemy. And we are his.

Father, open our eyes to the truth! Not so that we can run scared but so that we can turn and fight. So that Your Church will stop attacking one another and begin to fight back against the roaring lion seeking to devour. Help us learn how to use Your Word as a sword, how to protect ourselves with Your armor, and how to see our brothers and sisters as allies in battle for one another, not against one another.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!

His Disciple: The Search & The Priority

Intro

There is a narrow path and a broad path, of that, I’m sure. Not just because Jesus told us so, which would have been enough for me, but because I see these paths. I see what leads to life, and what leads to death. But through the blurry vision of just past middle-aged eyes, I see something else and it stirs emotions in me that I haven’t been quite sure how to manage.

I see those who chose the narrow road now attempting to widen that road. Cutting away things that make it harder to walk, things that make the narrowing. Redefining sin. Cutting out whole parts of God’s words. Twisting what is left to fit nicely over flesh that wants control of the ship and I am grieved somewhere deep and wondering if I too have a machete in my hand.

So I am doing the only thing I know to do. I’m going to search the scriptures for what it looks like to be a true disciple of Jesus. A follower who walks a narrow road behind the One who walked it first. I’m doing this for two reasons: to let God uncover my own heart in this matter, and to know how to pray for others who are widening what must remain narrow.

Let’s Go

We hear Him speak for the first time when He was twelve, after a frantic search by His parents found Him in the temple courts “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”

And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Other versions say “My Father’s House.”, but in either version I see the same thing:

Jesus was, and is, always about His Father’s business (and personally, I think the Father’s business is His house, which is His Church). Regardless, what Jesus is not always about is our business. Our agenda. Our vision. Our dreams and goals and ideas. Listen to what He said when Peter attempted to rebuke Him for saying He must suffer—

“But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Matthew 16:23)

Strong statement made to someone Jesus loved. But let this sink in: Peter thought he had in mind the right thing. He knew in part, saw in part, but thought he understood in full. We are Peter’s brothers and sisters, cut from the same cloth. I just don’t know that very many of us would admit to it.

From the first recorded words of the Son of God we get our first glimpse of His priority, and that priority never changed.

“ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34)

“For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.” (John 12:49)

“I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” (John 5:30)

 “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)

If I desire to be His true disciple, my priorities must align with His and that, dear friend, is easier said than done. As much as I wish it were not true, self-interest runs deep through my heart, filled with my preferences, my assumptions, and my wants. Oh, they aren’t presented that way. No sir. Sometimes they’re labeled as my calling, how I’m wired, my giftings, my mission.

So this is the first stop on my search for true discipleship. To wrestle with my own heart and what it wants and why it wants it and most of all, is it willing to give all of that up for what He wants? To let Him strip away the stuff that gathers over time that tends to make me forget what I know to be true: The whole world and everything in it is about God. The wide road makes it about us.

Lord, have Your way in me. Let something shift in me that brings down the idol of self-interest, self-priority, and self-preservation. I want my heart to align with Yours, so Jesus, show me Your heart.

We’re just getting started. Thanks for reading. See you next time.