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People Need The LordWhether you are an ordained minister or a house wife you are called to ministry as an intercessor, as an witness, and as a mentor of other people. People need the Lord, at the end of broken dreams, people need the Lord. One of the most moving experiences in evangelism for me happened one Friday Night on the West End in Dallas, TX. As usual a group of us from school would go out and witness and as was our custom we would take homeless people to get some food and find them a place to stay, taking them to the bus stop and giving them money to get to shelter. Well one Friday Night we were ministering to a street bum, we took him to Mac Donald's and bought him a meal. While he was eating we were sharing the good news with him and he said that he knew Jesus and tried to tell others about Him. He told us he heard a song when he visited a Baptist church that he liked. So here started singing, "People need the Lord, at the end of broken dreams, people need the Lord." That was a moving experience for me a homeless man with know hope knew God and was singing "at the end of broken dreams people need the Lord." Tell me about it, I felt like I needed the lord at that point because I wasn't at the end of the rope in my life and I had a hard time keeping my mind on heavenly things. And here is this street bum desperate for God. If that doesn't motivate you I don't know what will. We must do something, the time is short and the end is near. We all as Christians must make opportunities to minister to the lost and disciple both lost and saved people alike being used of God teaching them to pray, read the bible, have daily devotions, be obedient to Gods spirit, experience continual personal revival, evangelize and spiritual growth. I believe that discipleship is key to the great commission bearing much fruit that remains. All Christians are called to evangelize and do local missionary work not as the office of Evangelist or Missionary but as an ambassador for Christ it is in Jesus words. Jesus never spoke any words that allow complacency. Jesus said if you do not leave your family home and friends and pick up your cross and follow Him you are not worthy of me and if you are lukewarm He will spit you out of His mouth. (Matt 10:32-42; Rev 3:16). If He had called some to do nothing He would rapture them to heaven when they got saved but then the religious people would probably say we are a cult because people disappeared after we lead them to the Lord. What is going saying to you today? This is always the question have you been spending adequate time in Gods word, prayer evangelism and become the ministers in our spheres of influence neighborhood etc... We are to be the priests, prophets and kings stand in the gap, speak the words of God and lead them to Jesus. As a priest we intercede and stand in the gap in prayer and walk. as prophet we prophesy to them, speak the now word of God to them. As a king we lead them, teach, train and disciple them in the way to go. This is the call of every Christian I have scriptures and a whole theology to back it up.Discipleship – The Key To MakingWorld
Changers & History Makers
Discipleship is the essential key to great
commission, maintaining the harvest and exponential growth. C.P. Wagners says,
"Only one percent of all church growth actual comes from new converts,
first time commitments. Most Church growth comes from either church splits,
church hoping, sheep stealing, moving to another town, or backslidden church
members coming back to church and repenting." He goes on to state that
only three to ten percent of all new converts remain faithful to the church and
actually become active viable, life giving and self sustaining members. C.P.
Wagner calls this "The Follow up gap," or what James Kennedy
who wrote, “Evangelism Explosion” called the back door war. He said, “we
are loosing the back door war.” More people are leaving are churches faster
than people are coming to church. The Church of Jesus Christ and the lost need
us to acquire, establish and maintain a continual state of vibrancy, fellowship
and discipleship to reach this lost world for Jesus. The church must be vibrant
and relevant in Ministry today not archaic institutions or museums of a past
move of God. Daily prayer, caring, ministry, fellowship and discipleship kept
the New Testament Church expanding and growing and so should it apply likewise
in modern society in context of culture of course, (Acts 2:46; Hebrews 3:12-13).
The
goal of discipleship is the equipping and activation of saints into the fulltime
work of the ministry. In his book The
Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren illustrates this by saying, "The
church is in the sending business. It is our goal that eventually 25 percent of
our membership will do some kind of mission project each year. I'd love to see
our attendance go down every summer, not because people are on vacation but
because they are out on the mission field serving. Another goal is to send out
200 career missionaries from Saddleback in the next twenty years." Institutionalization,
control, sin, and pride - have Murdered Apostolic New
Testament witness and power Matthew 15:6b, "You have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition," Colossians 2:8. "Beware
lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the
tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not
according to Christ." James 4:6b, "God resists the proud, But gives
grace to the humble." The church has gone from power,
to talking about prior POW. We have gone from demonstrating and practicing Gods
glory and power, to working up fluff and puff. It is time to repent, to return
to Gods original order, to return to our first love; Jesus and His word, and go
after God without apologia. As the demise of the first century church was so it
extends to the church today 10 “A Lack of Holiness,” 11 “Institutionalism,”
Pride, and 12 “Politics,” have quenched the illusiveness of charisma
opting for humanitarian, political control. John Wesley believed the gifts of
the spirit to be in full operation in his time. His followers operated in the
gifts and believed him to be a prophet of God and the only reason for the
decline of spiritual gifts from the first century to the canonization of the
bible in the fifth century was sin, worldliness, pride, and sectarian control.
John Wesley’s wrote in his journal, “’I
was fully convinced of what I had long suspected, That the Montanists, in the
second and third centuries, were real, scriptural Christians; and, that the
grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn, was not only that
faith and holiness were well nigh lost; but that dry, formal, orthodox men began
even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them
all as either madness or imposture.” Later
in his sermon, “The More Excellent Way,” John Wesley proclaims that “The
cause of this [decline of spiritual gifts following Constantine] was not, (as
has been vulgarly supposed,) `because there was no more occasion for them,'
because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake; not a
twentieth part of it was then nominally Christian. The real cause was, `the love
of many,' almost of all Christians, so called, was `waxed cold.' The Christians
had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other Heathens. The Son of Man,
when he came to examine his Church, could hardly `find faith upon earth.' This
was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer
to be found in the Christian Church; because the Christians were turned Heathens
again, and had only a dead form left.'” The lack of holiness,
worldliness, pride, sinfulness and hardiness of heart was the demise of New
Testament Vibrancy and has had the same effect on the church today. We must do
all we can to restore biblical practice and order. We as the church of God must
repent and return to our first love or first call. Which is to go into the
entire world to preach the gospel, plant churches in every city and make
disciples; and then and only then baptize, teach, and activate each prophet,
priest and king in their specific lay ministry or five-fold ministry function or
any other relevant charismatic gift office, as joint heirs, intercessors and
ministers with Jesus. This is to be done through the preaching of Gods inerrant
word and allowing the Holy Spirit to have control in the service to heal and
minister to those in need, to equip and activate the saints into the work of the
ministry. It is essential to minister in the anointing allowing the full
operation of Gods Spirits demonstration of power and the full operation of Gods
miraculous gifts. Thus, activating every believer into their God given gift
office and calling until the whole world is filled with the knowledge and power
of our God. Spiritual "Boot Camp" One year of intensive training Mature Christians must commit to
mentor New Believers for atleast one year. Commit
one year of your life to disciple new converts, annually, and watch God work a
miracle in their life and yours. We must forget the days of trying to winning as
many converts as you can to chalk up brownie points in heaven and start
acquiring, establishing and maintaining true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ
who will become world changers and history makers. In church today to many
people want to see numbers and are no longer concerned with making true converts
they want bonus points in heaven not eternal rewards in the treasure God gives
them the lost souls whom are God treasure in earthen vessels.
Lost souls must see that they have sinned against heaven and repent not
by human pressure to add to the appearance of fruit to a specific ministry. We
are to store up treasure in heaven by pouring into lost people’s soul. Jesus
spent three years of His life pouring into the disciples mostly through example
and practice. He also preached in parables and taught in-depth theology. Jesus
lived the life and then asked them to follow as Paul said, “Follow me as I
follow Christ.” It is essential to live Jesus to each individual on a one on
one basis that is why it is essential for every Christian to disciple
“ATLEAST” one un-discipled person a year. As new converts are added to the
church one of the mature members of the body must commit to disciple that person
for one entire year before that person can become a member of the church. This
year of discipleship will consist of a bare minimum of three hours a week of
actual interactive one on one personal encounters with the power of God in
teaching and activating in prayer, contextual bible study and activation in
spiritual gifts, ministries, gift offices and operations. The discipleship program is to
consist of; one complete hour outside of Church is to be committed to contextual
bible study. During this hour the student will learn how to used simple bible
study aid such as “Strong’s Analytical Concordance,” “Vines Expository
Dictionary,” Lexicons, bible dictionaries, interlinear bibles, commentaries
etc… The disciple must be taught how to find the historical particularity of
the passage. The context of scripture must be pulled out and understood in
accordance with the human author, book, chapter, verse, and in context with the
rest of the word of God. This is to be done in accordance with proper
grammatical and linguistic interpretational skills from the word meanings of
original language, which are accessible to anyone who wants to know the truth
for him or herself. This all must be pulled out of the word of God actually says
and means not what people put into the word based upon their own biased dogmatic
opinions, through proper exegesis and hermeneutics applying Gods eternal words
to our contemporary and temporal situations. The disciple must be taught to
study scripture, precept upon precept, to take every verse of Gods word as a
principle that applies to all of scripture. Every word is inspired of God that
is why scripture interprets scripture and the bible is to be studied line upon
line. So that the person can be fully equipped to determine for themselves the
truth of Gods word and learn how to defend and share there personal faith in
Christ. They must be taught and be released in biblical forms of worship,
warfare, witness, prophecy, gifts, intercession, etc… under the anointing in
scriptural context, (John 16:8-13; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 John 2:20,27; 2 Peter
1:19-21). The disciple must be challenged to pray and the teacher must set up an
appointed time that every day of every week for that entire time that they will
come together and keep each other accountable to pray for that year. The time
period must be a bare minimum of one half hour to an hour a day. The teacher is
to teach on evangelism and is to model evangelism for the person whether called
to evangelism or not the teacher is to model evangelism to the new believer. The
teacher is to teach on spiritual gifts and pray for the inception of spiritual
gifts. The teacher is to function as a Christ based counselor not one who gives
advice but one who listens without thinking of there response and lead every
issue back to Christ ending every issue in prayer. The mentor is to spend one
hour a week or a month depending upon their schedule in fellowship with the
disciple and fellowship with them in a relaxed friendship environment. The
mentor must involve the disciple in things they find enjoyable in their life and
get involved with the things the disciple likes to do that are Christ-like and
that Christ would do. The Mentor is to also get the disciple involved in one
hour of ministry a week in Sunday school, prayer meeting, evangelism, helps,
etc… for the whole year actively participating and leading by example in each
situation. Humility and willingness to lead by example is important to show
Christ-likeness and Christ-minded. We
must not forget the Great Commission of Jesus to make Disciple through the
demonstration of the power of the Holy Ghost. It is important to reproduce your
ministry making your mechanical workload lighter and equipping the new converts
to effectively witness for Jesus.
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