The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s).
Who can think of the person at work, or at your school who is always looking for ways to get out of work? It doesn’t seem to matter the job or the assignment, they will be the first one who possibly even pulls you aside and says “Hey if we just do it this way, it will take half of the time!” I think we all agree we either know somebody like that or once knew someone like that in our lifetime.
In my years of ministry, I have been given several different titles. The most often misinterpreted is “evangelist”. “Revivalist” is the most misunderstood. Interestingly, it is not listed in the Bible. Over and over in the last thirty-five years He has taught me how to seek His heart and how to be able to clearly hear what He is saying. I understand my calling and job before God to be someone who promotes revival. This means my job is to revive someone from near spiritual death back to life again spiritually. One by one, the Lord opens my eyes while I am praying to conditions that exist in the church today. Then He shows me how the conditions developed. Next He will show me the best way to fix them.
This article deals with one of those things the Lord revealed to me actually several years ago but brought it back up during my prayer time at church recently. Over the last several months God has called me to go to my home church and spend time with Him alone in prayer each night. As I was walking one of the rows of chairs recently praying for my church family and for the church in America as a whole, this thought came clearly. “My people are praying Christian prayers but they are not praying disciple prayers.” The understanding of what that meant soon followed.
Just like those people that we either know or have known who are always looking for easy ways to get out of work, God’s people have been doing those same things for thousands of years. Someone at some point in history, no doubt inspired by Satan himself, came up with the thought, “Well, not everyone is a disciple. Some are disciples and the rest are Christians who are born again.” This is kind of like someone saying, “Not everyone is in the military. Some are in the military and some are civilians.” While we realize that the second statement is obviously true, the first statement has absolutely not one scriptural reference to support it. However, the Lord clearly showed me that literally millions of church-going attendees in America have either been taught by misguided leaders, perhaps to better fill their sanctuary, or else lukewarm believers have just chose to believe it on their own.
Do you know that Jesus never once called anyone to go and win converts to Christianity? What He did say in Matthew 28:18,19 is: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV) The word disciple means one who teaches while one is being taught. It’s an interesting word but it suggests a steady flow.
SOURCE: Christian Post, Nolan Harkness
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