Jesus Calls Us to Teach All Nations, not Make Disciples

"19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." (Matthew 28:19-20)

There is a contention in Christendom over discipleship.

The truth is that we are called to sonship, more than mere "discipleship."

Yes, there is teaching, there is training, there is transforming.

All of this springs from our becoming a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We receive the adoption of sons, we become children, sons of God, and He is our ABBA! (Romans 8:15)

Jesus did not come to be our teacher. He is our Savior.

He continues to be our Savior, the mercy seat for our sins (1 John 2:2), whose blood cleanses all our sins (1 John 1:7)

We are not called to be his fans, to be his followers.

We are invited to join His Family:

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Romans 8:29)

Jesus is the Firstborn, and we are his many brethren.

Jesus did not call for us to make disciples before He ascended into heaven. He called for us to "disciple", to teach others.

We need to teach the world that their sins are forgiven.

We need to teach them that they receive life in Christ Jesus.

We need to teach them that we are now sons of the Living God, those who believe on Jesus (John 1:12).

This is what the Great Commission is all about!

Furthermore, how does one directly "disciple" another?

By baptizing him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There is no greater "Teaching" than to be baptized in Christ Jesus, taken from sin and death, to righteousness and eternal life!

How Do You Follow Jesus? Know His Love for You

"And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.

"20Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?" (John  21:19-20)

Jesus has risen.

He is in His glorified body.

He restored Peter privately (1 Corinthians 15:5), then Jesus restored this leader of the early church publicly.

Jesus then exhorted him "Follow me."

Now, you will notice that Peter stopped looking at Jesus and started looking at John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

What was John doing? He was following Jesus!

Among some Christians, I hear a great deal of emphasis on the fact that we need to follow Jesus. They usually indicate with this statement that we need to do more for Him, that we need to strive to be like Him.

Yet we see in John, the Beloved disciple, that he simply practiced Jesus' love for him. He knew, He grew in his knowledge of Jeuss' love for him!

The very prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians, the same church which had the greatest revelation of God's love out of all the churches whom Paul had written to.

If we really want to follow Jesus, we need to practice Jesus' love for us.

The more that we understand how much He loves us, the more that we will want to be with Him, to go where He wants us to go, to do the things that He wants us to do!

Do you want to follow Jesus? Know more and more about how much He loves you!

Jesus Revealed God as "Our Father"

"Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (John 20:17)

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus revealed this most sacred, wonderful, and hallowed name of God:

Father.

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)

and

"And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." (Mark 11:25)

and

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

Notice that when Jesus had risen from the dead, and when Mary recognized Him, He announced a new standing, and a new pre-eminence in our relationship with God.

"My Father, and your Father!"

His name "Father" comes before "God."

This is the most intimate name that we are to use when speaking with God.

He is not some distant deity. He is our Father!

This is the most important name of God which has been revealed to us. Let us not neglect in understanding fully our sonship before God our Father because of Christ Jesus!

Not Your Cross -- His Cross

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" (Colossians 2:14)

Many people draw a lesson for the Christian life from Luke 14.

They believe that we must suffer as Christ Jesus did, that we must "Bear our Cross."

Here are the verses:

"25And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, 26If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-27)

In this context, we find a large, "great" multitudes of people who were walking with Him. It's easy to say that you are on the "Jesus team" when there are lots of other people around you, and no one can really pick you out of the crowd.

Jesus was not pleased with this. These crowds saw Jesus as a status celebrity, a symbol. They were fans. They were followers. They did not see Him as Savior.

Jesus cut through this feigned adoration.

"If you really want to follow me", Jesus told them, "if you want to see Me as a pattern, then you need to do everything I did. You need to give up everything, put everything into despicable disrepute, and then take up the cross."

"Taking up the cross" means more than merely carrying it around. When someone was carrying a cross, it meant that at some point, that person was going to hang on the cross and die.

In an earlier chapter in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says to other would-be followers of Him, those who see Him as a pattern:

"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23)

To those disciples, those who earnestly wanted to "Be Like Jesus," He exhorted them to take up their cross daily.

Imagine having to drag that rugged, wooden device of torture up a hill every day. Imagine having to be nailed to that perverse tool of execution every day! The very thought of dying on a Cross was torturous to anyone living in those times.

No, Jesus never intended for us to take up our own cross and suffer like Him. None of us can. We were sinners! We needed redemption. We needed righteousness. There is no way we could achieve it ourselves.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:" (1 Peter 3:18)

Notice that Jesus suffered for sins, all the sins of the world, not just yours and mine, and He suffered once. If we were to suffer for our own sins, we could never "not suffer", so to speak, because our blood, tainted with sin, could never repay the debt we owe to God for our sins.

So, Jesus was never interested, nor did He intend for us to take up a cross and suffer as He did.

Notice what Paul writes to the Colossians:

"[N]ailing it to his cross;"

His Cross, Not yours, not mine, but HIS!

He died on His cross for us!

Indeed, we will suffer for our faith in Christ, but whatever reproach, shame, indignties, or death the world can visit upon us, they are nothing compared to Christ's glory in us! (Colossians 1:27):

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)

Brothers and sisters in Cross, stop trying to take up "your cross". That was never Jesus' intention. See Jesus as Your Savior, the one who died on His Cross, not only paying for all our sins, but granting us His righteousness, and in fact rendering inoperative the Law of Moses against us by fulfilling all of its requirements against us.

God is Your Daddy--It's Important to Receive That

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15)

People in the world, and in the Body of Christ, are suffering.

They fall into temptations. They feel demands in their flesh for things that are destructive.

These lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, all of this is a result of one thing:

We have not allowed the Love of the Father into us!

We need to know God as our Daddy!

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)

Abba! Daddy! That's what we are called receive!

We have received this Spirit of Adoption, full-grown sonship in Christ Jesus!

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:17)

There are many Christians out there who do not see God as Father.

They Him as a distant taskmaster, or they seem Him as someone who felt obliged to send His Son for us, but that He has no real interest in our daily lives, concerns, struggles, pains, etc.

That is not true!

He loves us! He sees us in His own Son, and in fact has seated us in His own Son at His own right hand:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2:4-6)

If we struggle over anything, the answer is a greater, growing revelation of God the Father's love for us!

Life: A Journey of Discovering How Much God Loves You

What is Life about?

Jesus is our life, certainly, as Paul wrote to the Colossians (Colossians 3:4), and Jesus Himself declared to His disciples (John 14:6)

Then I found this statement on social media.

This statement says it all:

The Christian life is essentially a journey of discovering how much God really loves you! #Grace #LoveofGod ❤️❤️❤️

— Milton Goh (@MiltonGohBlog) July 21, 2019

This was Paul's Number One Prayer for us:

"14For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3:14-19)

That is God's heartbeat for us, through Paul.

This life is indeed a journey of seeing, knowing, recognizing, believing more deeply in God's love for us!

Just when you think you have figured, you have really understood how much God loves you, there is so much, so much more for you to learn

We have not yet even scratched the surface of what Christ Jesus accomplished at the Cross. We have not even scratched the surface of what Christ Jesus Christ accomplished at the Cross for each of us!

We don't have the faintest idea how much God has been working behind the scenes to assist us, even when, especially when our troubles were of our own making.

We have no idea how much God's Holy Spirit has been wrapped up in and around us throughout our journey, before as well as after we believed on Jesus for our salvation!

There is so much that we need to learn.

No wonder that Peter wrote these final words in his last epistle:

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." (2 Peter 3:18)

Pastors Are NOT Called to Fix People, But to Preach Jesus--He Changes Us!

I understand the notion of receiving people who are hurt, who are in pain. I understand that there are Christians out there who see temptations in their flesh, and they feel ashamed about those feelings.

I also understand why there is concern about hitting on their feelings, and telling them that they need to get rid of their feelings.

It is good that churchces receive people who are hurting and do not rush to communicate a message of "You need to clean up! You need to get YOUR act together!"

Let us not believe, however, that God does not change us, or that these struggles should define us!

We are spirit! We are not flesh!

We are sons of light!

"Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness." (1Thessalonians 5:5)

People receive Jesus, and He transforms them. He transforms us!

"17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Jesus accepts us as we are, and because we receive Him, we become as He is!

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

and of course:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

My concern when it comes to homosexuality, when it comes to sexual perversion, is that there is still  this idea that homosexuality, that "gay" is a solid, real identity.

It simply is not.

The Body of Christ must not be afraid to speak the truth about this matter. God did not design our bodies for same-sex conduct. These behaviors harm, they kill, they rob us of the beauty and dignity which are loving Father wants us to have.

It is important to say "We are not trying to change you," but let us not shy away from declaring the truth, which is that "When Jesus' love takes hold of you, you won't want to hold onto, or engage, in homosexual conduct anymore."

These are not behavior for us! They are sins!

"9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Paul did not hold back in his first letter to the Corinthians.

He then swoomed in with the grace of God, to remind them what Jesus had done for them!

"11And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11)

Paul never hesitates to say to the Corinthians. "Such behaviors belong to those who are unsaved. You ARE Saved! Why act like you are dead, when you have been brought to life?"

Pastors are not called to fix people. We are called to preach Jesus, we are called to invite, urge people to believe in Jesus, to be set free from sin, to be transformed from death to life, to be taken out of Adam and placed in Christ Jesus!

He changes us! He transforms us from glory to glory!

AMEN!