The readings for this coming Sunday, March 11 are:Old Testament: Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm: Psalm 63:1-8
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9
Epistle: I Corinthians 10:1-13
Click here to read them.
Discipleship & Complacency
The International Church of the Nazarene has a new mission:
"To make Christlike disciples in the nations."
It's short. It's simple. And yet it's loaded with meaning. We'll look at this tomorrow and it's implications, one of which is a dedication to discipleship.
Discipleship implies growth. It is subsequent to salvation ("it follows salvation") . It is not a destination or a goal. It is a journey, a road, or a life-long process. In fact, for the one who has decided to follow Christ, we can look at it as life itself. It's just what we who follow Christ do.
Discipleship implies learning. And since it's life-long, there's really no degree to hang on the wall at the end. The results of discipleship-learning are shown in our lives every day.
Discipleship implies obedience. But this obedience goes beyond mimicking the teacher. It goes beyond just doing what the teacher says to actually owning what he asks of us.
Below are two of Saint Paul's prayers. One is at the beginning of a letter to the church in Philippi and the other is about halfway through a letter to another church in Ephesus. In each case, the recipients are people who have already committed themselves to Christ and his Church. Paul is not proselytizing here - he's writing to and praying for Christians. Here are his prayers...let's make them ours for tomorrow:
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
- Philippians 1:9-11
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
- Ephesians 3:14-19
