a disciple's blog

...our job is to disciple them. Friday morning, I read Oswald Chambers' devotional, My Utmost for His Highest and the devotion for that day has stuck with me. Brother Chambers was warning us against desiring spiritual success and his scripture reference was Luke 10:20.

As a Pastor, I believe that we can sometimes get so caught up in having "spiritual children" that we forget to raise them. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be concerned with reaching the lost. I'm saying that we're not the ones doing the saving. We can not allow ourselves to get caught up with numbers. If we are making ourselves available to be used by God and if we are taking advantage of every opportunity that God gives us then the rest is up to Him.

My biggest concern is whether or not we are making disciples. Once God places a "spiritual newborn" in our arms are we then walking away leaving them to fend for themselves? As a Pastor, I believe that we have a greater calling to make disciples; to raise up mature believers in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately our attention span is short and discipling can take years. Many of us are not even in our current position/church long enough to see a brother or sister in Christ reach any resemblance of maturity.

My call to Pastors, including myself is to stop focusing on numbers; stop seeking greener pastures and start investing. We need to invest our time and energy into maturing the Body of Christ. We need to turn so called churches that are a mile wide and an inch deep into bottomless reservoirs for the Holy Spirit to dwell.

Will it be easy? No. Can we do it alone? No.

As Brother Chambers said in his devotional "...our work only begins where God's grace has laid the foundation. But it is our work, work that God has given us to do. Now lets get to work building up the Body of Christ in His image!