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Posts Tagged ‘Disciples’

Great Commission: The Power Points of Life

02 Sep

Spiritual Condition of the BodySource of the Article: Devotional from the Church of God International office regarding the Great Commission written by Dr. Culpepper and P. Douglas Small.

THE MANDATE – Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

THE MEDITATION – The Kingdom is Your rule and reign. In Matthew 6, Lord, You touch the toughest disciplines of our lives – giving (vv. 1-4), prayer, (vv. 5-15), and fasting (vv. 16-18). This is heavy stuff.

These issues are the heart of being a disciplined follower. In them, the whole sphere of my existence is touched: giving – my relationship with all things material; prayer -my relationship with time and eternity, with the unseen dimension; fasting -
my relationship with all things internal, the flesh, my most powerful inner hungers. All things external, all things eternal, all things internal. The material things I own, the way I spend my time, the desires that control me. Here are the three power points for all of life.

I know that if I can’t give it away, I don’t own it: it owns me. If I don’t own have time to pray, I don’t have time to control at all. If the most important activity in which a human can engage, spending time with the Divine, is spurned, then my life is indeed out of control. I know that if I can’t say, “No!” to the desires of the flesh, the spirit-man within me will be forever crippled and powerless.

You called Your disciples to these three simple disciplines – giving, prayer, and fasting. Help me to hear Your call. My capacity to obey You and begin the journey as a serious soldier starts here.

THE MISSION – 4 Steps to Becoming a Great commission Christian:

1) Review your budget. Ask, Does my spending reflect the lordship of Christ?

2)  Review your time. Do you pray regularly? Daily? Do you have, as Jesus suggested in Matthew 6:6, a room or closet for prayer?

3)  Review your fasting patterns. Do you regularly fast? Wednesday and Friday were fasting days for the first-century church.

4)  Giving, praying, fasting – how are you doing as a disciples.

GREAT COMMISSION QUOTATION – Prayerlessness is sin. – Harold Linsell

GREAT COMMISSION FACT – Christian churches worldwide spend 85 percent of their resources on their own development – personnel, finances, tools, even prayer. Do you know that all 6400 unreached people groups could be evangelized of North American Evangelicals would give only 2% of their income to that cause.

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Great Commission: Making Disciples

24 Jul

Source of the Article: Devotional from the Church of God International office regarding the Great Commission written by Dr. Culpepper and P. Douglas Small.

THE MANDATE – Luke 21:12 says, They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake”.

THE MEDITATION – Lord, we often hear about incredible breakthroughs around the world, and then of heart-wrenching setbacks.

We have heard about the great revival in Korea one hundred years ago. So powerful was that move of God that the capital city was called “the second Jerusalem.” And then Japanese rule came. Soon, pagan beliefs were introduced into the Korean culture.

Finally, ancient sun worship was imposed-full-blown paganism. Pagan shrines were then set up on church property. Pagan ceremonies were inaugurated in public schools to capture the next generation. Some Christian’s resisted. A few refused to bow at the Shinto shrines. And then on September 11, 1938, the last resisting Protestant church instructed its members to bow at Shinto shrines as a cultural concession. World War II followed, and when it ended, North Korea was in darkness.

O God, help us to remain faithful. Give us wisdom. Our lack of resolve may close whole nations to the Gospel-even our own. Our bold obedience may open doors that can never be closed. Here, in our own backyard we are being asked to bend and bow to cultural concessions loaded with moral and spiritual implications. We never expected these choices here in Canada and North America. Make us a worthy example to a watching world. Let us learn from the lessons of the past. Send a global revival.

See, the heart of the Great Commission is not in the going or the preaching. It is making disciples! That process of bringing men and women, not merely to a point of decision, but into a lifestyle that demonstrates the lordship of Christ in evident ways-that is discipleship. The Church is full of people who admire Jesus, but it needs people who are bond slaves to His every command! We must be disciples to make disciples.

THE MISSION – 4 Steps to Becoming a Great Commission Christian:

1.    Pray for nations resistant to the Gospel.

2.    Pick out a head of state from a nation that is not Christian. Print off a picture. Google facts about him. Adopt him for prayer.

3. Consider hosting a “pray for the nations” gathering. Bring a map. Share some simple facts. Pray-for at least five nations that God would open their doors to the Gospel.

4. Pray for the leaders of those nations.

GREAT COMMISSION QUOTATION – Woe is me, if I do not preach the Gospel – Paul the apostle.

GREAT COMMISSION FACT – In Buenos Aires, 550 believers met in a train depot at rush hour. They began softly singing “Hallelujah”. The atmosphere of the station was dramatically changed. They boarded trains and fanned out into the city. They touched 7,000 people in one evening – 6,736 wanted prayer, 7,704 became Christians.  Church, we have the gift of prayer, freely you have received so give it freely and frequently.

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Great Commission: Turning the World Upside Down

17 Jul

Source of the Article: Devotional from the Church of God International office regarding the Great Commission written by Dr. Culpepper and P. Douglas Small.

THE MANDATE – Acts 17:6 says, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too”. I pray that our city would say that about us.

THE MEDITATION – Think about this, within three hundred years the New Testament men and women did it! They turned the world upside down. The ragtag band of disciples transformed the pagan Roman Empire into a Christian nation.

They faced the lions. They put out the fires of persecution. They shut down the pagan shrines. Wow! We cannot even imagine such an impact on our culture. And they did it without political action committees, without pressure on Roman senators. They did it through prayer, systematic city-by-city, church planting, and by an empowering every-member-a-witness philosophy.

And then suddenly, having won, they lost. As pagans flooded into the new popular churches endorsed by a Christian emperor, the church failed to disciple its new converts. They failed to insist that the same strategy they had used to conquer paganism-every believer living in vital connection to God-was also necessary to sustain the movement.

They let the lights go out. And what followed were the Dark Ages. We are letting it happen again. With a passive laity that is deeply dependent on clergy and worship events that are performance driven, we are losing the culture. God, have mercy on us. Oh God, for Your glory and the sake of Your bride infuse Your church with a renewal of the Holy Spirit. Cause us to return to the discarded vaules of the past. Send a revival that shakes the kingdom of darkness.

THE MISSION – 4 Steps to Becoming a Great Commission Christian:

1. Go to a courtroom and observe. Listen to the cases. Feel the vibrations of a culture falling apart.

2. Read the newspaper. Cut out articles that detail the moral and spiritual crises of our nation. Review them. Give God permission to assign you as an intercessor to one of these causes.

3. Recruit partners to pray with you for a spiritual awakening. Determine that you will no longer be a passive Christian whose life makes little different.

4. Consider other prayer missions to specific places in the city-places of pain and plates of promise. Keep a diary of your prayer experiences, including words from the Lord.

GREAT COMMISSION QUOTATION – Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. William Carey

GREAT COMMISSION FACT – If your church were to close its doors today, would anyone but its own members notice? Would the community be-saddened because such a great community-transformation partner was gone?

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