ARE WE Listening?? To God & His Spirit?

  God is sooo amazing! God is sooo Good! Even at my age He is still spurring me on! And keeping it simple for me!

Disciples are - Disciple makers

Lookie Lookie what I had in my stash to share and never got around to it...
Am I listening? God Is never to early or to late.. He's always on time to speak, Am I listening??
Please take time to read this all, it is so encouraging. And at the end there is hopefully some added encouragement as God is working..

If you’re a Christian, have you thought about what your number one priority should be? David Platt powerfully explains the urgency of this for believers.

Guest Blogger: Dr. David Platt, Pastor at The Church at Brook Hills, is deeply devoted to Christ and His Word. He has authored several books, Radical, Radical Together, and Follow Me. He is the founder of Radical (Radical.net) a resource ministry dedicated to serving the church in making disciples of all nations. Precept Ministries is honored to have David as one of our guest bloggers.

Scripture gives us a number of ways to know who is truly a follower of Christ. For example, those who repent of their sin, trust in Christ, and surrender to his lordship have the marks of a true disciple. Those are foundational responses to the gospel. But did you know that being a disciple also means that you ought to be making disciples?

If you’re a follower of Christ, you weren’t made to be a spectator; you were made to be a disciple-maker.

Different Parts, One Mission

In 1 Corinthians 12 we see that as the body of Christ, even as a local body of Christ, we all represent different parts, or members, of the body. We have different skills, giftings, and personalities. We’re unique—the eye, the foot, the hand, etc.—but we come together in one body and we have a mission to accomplish in this world.
   And this mission involves every single one of us.
At this moment, there are people who we know, love, work with, eat with, and play with who do not know Christ and are on a road that leads to an eternal hell. We live in the third most populated country in the world (behind India and China), and we’re also third behind them in terms of the number of unreached people groups in one country. We live in a world where nearly two billion people still don’t even have access to the gospel, not to mention the other two to three billion people who have access to the gospel but have not yet received it. If this is the situation in the city, country, and world around us, then who among us can sit on the sidelines as a spectator in this mission?
God has not saved you to sideline you.

No Spectators

God has saved you, Christian, to send you out . . . into your city, and into the nations to tell the good news that Jesus has lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserve to die, and conquered the enemy that we cannot conquer. Christ has risen from the grave, and everyone who turns from their sin and trusts in Him will be reconciled to God forever. Every single Christian is on the earth to proclaim Christ. Every single one—no spectators.
None of us is a super-Christian, so we need to continue to grow in our knowledge and faith as we give our lives to making disciples of Jesus. For far too long we have assumed that growing in Christ simply means attending Bible studies and going to church services and living nice, clean lives. None of those things are bad; they’re good things. We need to study the Bible and we need to worship and we need to be pure, but if all of these things are disconnected from making disciples of Jesus and leading other people to become disciples of Jesus (which they often are), then we are missing the point of what it means to be a disciple in the first place.

Followers are Fishers

From the very beginning, Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 4:19, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Every follower should be a fisher . . . not fishing for men all over the lake, but spreading the gospel all over the world. At the end of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples” (Matt 28:19). Then in Acts 1:8 he tells them that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit, not just so that they can go to Bible studies and worship and be a kind person, but so that they would be witnesses—to testify about him “to the end of the earth.”
God has not saved you to dwell in a Christian bubble; God has saved you to spread the Christian gospel, both in the city where you live and to the ends of the earth. This is what we were created for, what we’ve been commissioned to do as a church. This is what we’re compelled to do as Christians, to be disciples who make disciples so that the grace and love of God are spread all over the world through us!

Some Questions to Act On

Let me ask you a question: How are you making disciples? You may be tempted to think, “I don’t know if I can really make disciples.” If that’s you, then I want to let you in on a secret: you can’t. But that’s the whole point. God has put His Holy Spirit in you, and He has equipped you and empowered you to do that which you could never do on your own. That’s the whole point of Christianity. God has not saved you to sit on the sidelines and to do what you’re capable of doing. He has saved you to live on the front lines and experience what He alone is capable of doing.
One of the ways we can grow as disciple-makers is by being intentional and consistent in how we pursue God and walk in obedience to his mission. The five questions below are designed to help you in that process. I want to challenge you to think about the following questions and spend some time answering them. Be specific in your answers.
To grow as a disciple maker in the coming days . . .

1. How will I fill my mind with truth?

How can you be intentional to read God’s Word? The life of the disciple is the life of a learner; we want to learn from Christ and we want His Word to fill our minds. This includes memorizing God’s Word and learning from others. And remember, the goal in filling our mind with truth is not just to gain information, but to experience transformation. We want to hear the truth of God’s Word, and at the same time we want to apply and experience the truth of God’s Word.

2. How will I fuel my affections for God?

Even as I’m encouraging you to ask these questions, I realize that if we’re not careful, even Bible reading (or other spiritual disciplines) can become mechanical and monotonous, which is not the point. Our goal is not just to know God; our goal is to love God. So what can you do to fuel affection, to stoke the fires of passion for God?
Worship is one of the avenues for fueling our affections for God. As a follower of Christ, I hope that you are a member of a local church body and that you are committed to prioritize weekly worship with your church—more than weekend sports or other weekend activities that would keep you from worship.
Prayer is monumental in fueling our affections for God. Designate a time and a place when you go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. This one practice alone will utterly revolutionize your life.
Fasting is another way to fuel our affection for God. Commit to setting aside a meal once a week or once every few weeks, or maybe more as time progresses. When you fast, pray something like this: “More than I want food, I just want to feast on God in prayer and in His Word. More than food to satisfy my hunger, I want to be satisfied with Christ.”
Our giving can also fuel our affections for God. You might think, “What does giving have to do with affection for God?” According to Jesus, giving has everything to do with affection for God. Matthew 6:21 tells us that, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Instead of tithing being the ceiling of your giving, why not make tithing the floor of your giving, and give generously and sacrificially to His glory?

3. How will I share God’s love as a witness in the world?

Who has God put in your life (in your sphere of influence) who does not know Christ? Write down the names of three, five, or maybe even ten people you know who don’t know Christ. Pray for them this year, and work by God’s grace to see them come to Christ. What is going to be your plan for sharing Christ with them? Think of ways you can specifically and deliberately create opportunities to share the gospel with those people. It could be through an invitation to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or coffee. Is there some other activity or avenue you could explore, whether that’s something as involved as spending a day or weekend with them, or something as simple as writing a letter to them?

4. How will I spread God’s glory among all peoples?

We have been commanded to make disciples of all nations, and that is not just a command for extraordinary missionaries; that is a command for ordinary disciples. So how is your life going to play a part in the spread of God’s glory to the ends of the earth? Consider these three ways:

Pray: One of the ways we can spread God’s glory among all peoples is to pray. You and I have the opportunity to be a part of what God is doing around the world from our knees. You might use a resource like Operation World (OperationWorld.org) to pray for the nations of the world.
(PRAY for people in our sphere of influence By Name.. Pray with them & for them)

Give: We can also be a part of what God is doing through our giving. Though we may not al*ways feel like it, we are the richest people to ever walk planet earth. How can we sacrifice to give to the needs of the world? (How can we give to the needs of those right around us?)

Go: In order to spread God’s glory among all peoples we need to go to the nations. Think through any and every way you might spend your life, lead your family, or leverage your work to go to the people groups of the world with the gospel. Our lives should be a blank check on the table . . . no strings attached. (Start where we are planted...)

5. One final question: How will I make disciple makers among a few people?

Jesus, more than anyone else who has ever lived, was most passionate about the Father’s glory among all nations, yet He poured His life into a few people. So how can you do the same thing?
As a disciple-maker, you want to spend your life multiplying the gospel in such a way that you help equip, empower, and embolden the people around you to start making disciples as well.

And we here at FBC Griffith have a study/training/helping time here in Brother Warren's class.
We are honing our skills in the "7 Essential Skills in Disciple making," that will help us *as we are Going* to make Disciples... or plant seeds... or bring in a harvest... Just Saying..
I hope everyone will take advantage of what God has truly given Warren. AND he's willing to share this simple Lifestyle with us and to help us all. Let's do what Jesus has said we should do.(& be)
"Go.... Be...." Be assured the devil will try to stop us at every turn. :-)