Discipling the Generations: Part 4

This is the fourth part in a series talking about discipling the generations, especially young people. We are looking at aspects of Jesus' life and example of how He worked with His disciples. We’re going to look today at Jesus’ intentional work of growing His disciples.

The first point I want to emphasize is Jesus intentionally challenged His disciples with tasks meant to stretch and grow them. He taught them, equipped them, and then sent them forth to serve various times, always bringing them back to debrief and make sense of what they’d experienced. For a disciple to truly grow and mature, these times of stretching are critical. It isn’t enough to simply feed your disciple head knowledge. They must learn to apply the Word of God in their daily life. Sometimes, life events will help them along without any involvement from you. But other times, they may need encouragement from you to do something that will challenge and strengthen their faith. Like Jesus, we must be sensitive to these opportunities in the lives of those we have been called to train.

In addition, Jesus used significant events to make impactful messages sink deep in their hearts. Like the feeding of five thousand. Or the raising of Lazarus. Or the storm on the sea. Crisis moments in our lives can become huge “ah ha!” moments of spiritual truths. Sometimes a mentor is all we need to help us see the light. When we are all wrapped up in our own busyness, it’s hard to truly be there for a friend experiencing a crisis moment. But that is exactly what Jesus wants us to do, not only to help them bear the burden, but also to point them towards the light and truth of God and His everlasting Word.

Take a moment to prayerfully consider who in your life is going through a crisis moment right now. How can you be an encouragement to them today?

Discipling the Generations: Part 3

This is the third part in a series talking about discipling the generations, especially young people. We are looking at aspects of Jesus' life and example of how He worked with His disciples. Today we are going to focus on prayer.

One of the most important (and often the most overlooked) aspects of discipleship is faithful prayer for the disciple. Jesus gives us this important example in multiple places. 

Take a look at Luke 22:32 where Jesus tells Peter after his denial of Jesus, "But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Jesus' prayer for Peter was powerful and crucial in Peter's returning to the Lord. In another place, during Jesus' great intercessory prayer just before His arrest, He prays for unity among His disciples and for all believers that would come after them. 

This is just a sampling of the prayers we have recorded that He prayed specifically for His disciples. Faithful, fervent, intercessory prayer... this reflects the heart of a discipler for his disciples, and more importantly, it reflects the heart of God. 

I'll be quite honest: I have struggled a lot to be faithful in this area. In a future post, I will be sharing more about how I've found a tool that has helped me tremendously. Until then, you can ask yourself, who is God calling me to pray for today?  

Discipling the Generations: Part 2

This is the second part in a series talking about discipling the generations, especially young people. We are looking at aspects of Jesus' life and example of how He worked with His disciples. We'll examine a couple more points today.

The first point is this: Jesus modeled a faithful life for His disciples and included them in on every aspect of His life to observe His times of devotion, rest, refreshment, nourishment, service, work, and anguish… his life rhythms, in other words. I remember well watching my parents walk through a grief that was not my own and observing carefully how they responded to it. It prepared me to walk through a much bigger grief that my whole family shared a few years later. Observation is a huge part of discipleship, which brings me to my next point. 

Jesus shared His griefs and sorrows as well as His joys with His disciples. His life was an open (and perfect) book. It’s a bit scary for us as we open up our lives to observation from others. What if they see nothing but sin and hypocrisy? Certainly, we need to pray through our habits and examples and continue to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal sins in our lives, but by God’s grace, being still imperfect and sinful, we can make a huge impact in the lives of those we mentor. And when we sin, being honest, humble, and transparent can also be an important lesson to teach others.

How can you include someone needing discipleship in your life during this holiday season? Pray and ask the Lord to continue to direct you to those He would have you disciple.