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disciples

What Am I Doing Here?: Tending the Sheep

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Having been made in the image of God, our hearts have been set by Him on eternity. Rooted in each heart is a God-given desire to impact the world around us. But in the midst of endless distractions, countless opportunities to live out our purpose can go unnoticed each and every day. Stick around this week as we look at how we live our day-to-day lives in a way that points others to the cross.

 

Tending the Sheep

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19, NASB

thursdayEverywhere we look, we are surrounded by hurting people. In their hearts are holes that only God can fill, yet we in the church are failing to share the gospel message of salvation with them. We have the cure for what ails them, yet we keep it to ourselves.

Is it the fear of not knowing enough about the Bible? Are we afraid of appearing vulnerable by putting ourselves out there and facing rejection? Or are we so distracted and overwhelmed by the pace of our lives that we fail to make sharing our faith with those around us a priority?

I realize that not all of us are called to be Bible teachers or evangelists, but each of us are called to make disciples.

Abounding with impactful teachings, humble service, and astounding miracles, Jesus’ earthly ministry was nothing short of amazing! He healed the sick, He brought the dead to life, and He walked on water. But in addition to the remarkable, He lived His life out daily alongside His chosen disciples. Working to prepare them to pick up the torch when His time on Earth had ended, He poured Himself into them. He served them, He taught them, and He broke bread with them. He did real life with them and had real relationships with them. It is this group that went on to turn the world upside down for the gospel.

Isn’t that what we desire to do: to turn the world upside down for Jesus? But how will we equip other believers if we aren’t sharing the hope we have in Christ with them? Who will tell them if we aren’t? Unfortunately, many of them are looking to what the world is telling them to fill that God-sized hole in their hearts.

I wonder how many opportunities to share my faith I’ve missed because I wasn’t looking. Or how many relationships I have missed out on because I didn’t think I had time to invest in anyone else?

God has placed people in each of our lives for us to pour ourselves into as we live out this life beside them, pointing them to Jesus along the way. Our children need to know what we believe and why we believe it, but so do our friends, our neighbors, and our coworkers. Everyone need to know because their salvation depends on it!

Each and every day people die and their eternity will be spent somewhere. Wouldn’t it be great to see them in Heaven?!

Pouring out,
Traci

What Am I Doing Here?: Equipping the Called

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Having been made in the image of God, our hearts have been set by Him on eternity. Rooted in each heart is a God-given desire to impact the world around us. But in the midst of endless distractions, countless opportunities to live out our purpose can go unnoticed each and every day. Stick around this week as we look at how we live our day-to-day lives in a way that points others to the cross.

 

Equipping the Called

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. 

Acts 4:13, NASB

wedenesdayMy comfort zone. I like it there. A lot. It’s … comfortable.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Somewhere along the way, I have learned that these “works” Paul referred to doesn’t usually happen in our comfort zones. Believe me, I’ve tried.

With our eternal mind-set comes God-sized, God-inspired dreams and before time began, God knew the plan He had in store for each of us. Sadly, our desires for reaching the world around us for the gospel are all too often overshadowed by big doses of insecurity and self-doubt. Believing the lies whispered to us by the enemy that we aren’t gifted enough, driven enough, smart enough, or influential enough, we sit paralyzed with that doubt and are rendered ineffective. To be totally honest, none of us are enough, but God is and His power is perfected in our weakness.

Like John and Peter, we may not be formally trained in anything. Or maybe we do have formal training … in something completely unrelated to the calling God has placed on our lives. Fortunately for you and me, God is in the business of equipping those He has called!

Peter and John certainly didn’t have a resume that screamed “world changers,” but they led thousands to salvation in Christ. Not because of who they were or any skills the possessed. In fact, they were recognized as being uneducated and untrained. Ouch! That has to hurt.

However, filled with unmistakable confidence and boldness by the Holy Spirit, they preached the gospel message of salvation and repentance, and their critics—the Sadducess—were able to clearly see they had been with Jesus.

Despite our gifts and talents, we are able to do little, if anything, in the way of eternal significance in our own strength. Like John and Peter, reliance upon the strength of the Lord is the key to any work that the Lord calls us to do. In order to receive that strength, we, too, must be with Jesus. Worship, prayer, and reading Scripture are essential to meeting with Him and being filled with the strength, confidence, and ability to do His work.

Confident in Him,

Traci

What Am I Doing Here?: Mission Doesn’t Mean Miles

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Having been made in the image of God, our hearts have been set by Him on eternity. Rooted in each heart is a God-given desire to impact the world around us. But in the midst of endless distractions, countless opportunities to live out our purpose can go unnoticed each and every day. Stick around this week as we look at how we live our day-to-day lives in a way that points others to the cross.

 

Mission Doesn’t Mean Miles

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19, NASB

tuesdayTo the left of the parking lot exit, the sign reads, “You are now entering the mission field.” I see it several times a week as I leave my kids’ preschool, but do I really believe that?

“Mission field” brings to my mind passports, orphans with shoeless feet, extreme poverty, and a divine calling from Almighty God. While these are often true about missions, there’s much more to it. On our recent trip to Nicaragua, my narrow-minded view of missions was challenged by a teammate during morning devotions.

Building on the wisdom that comes from years of living as a missionary, my teammate and friend reminded me that you don’t need to cross an ocean to be a missionary. Instead, it’s living a life of intention regardless of where we find ourselves. Allowing this message to settle deep in my heart, I left for a day of ministry feeling encouraged and with a strong resolve to live missionally wherever I was.

Wouldn’t you know that I had the opportunity to put that resolve into practice almost immediately after returning home? Hearing yet another sibling squabble as I was washing dishes, I struggled to wrap my mind around the paradigm shift that had just occurred in my life. How was it possible that only two days earlier I had witnessed inmates in a Nicaraguan jail sing praises to God, weeping and falling to their knees praying for forgiveness? It was a hard concept to grasp and quite honestly, my life didn’t feel very missional at that moment. In fact, it felt annoying.

Remembering the words of my wise friend, I reminded myself of my role as a follower of Christ: shaping those screaming preschoolers into disciples is a divine calling. It is kingdom work. Regardless of our season of life or our location on a map, we each have a divine calling: to make disciples.

Jesus commanded believers to make disciples of all nations, but we don’t need to cross oceans to do it. Disciples need to be made in our homes, in our churches, in our schools, and in our office buildings.

Living missionally isn’t about the miles we have traveled: mission is about our hearts. It is about living our lives intentionally in order to share Christ’s love with the world around us. There is no place on this earth that doesn’t need the love of Jesus Christ, so none of us get a pass on this one. All nations means my nation and your nation, my neighborhood and your neighborhood.

Wherever God has us: that is our mission field. Let’s get to work!

Living missionally,

Traci