On Tuesday, I challenged you to think about the process
of evangelism. Today, I want to talk a little more about that process. One of
the 7 habits of effective disciple making is to make discipleship a part of the
rhythm of your life. With that being said, let’s talk about what that would
look like.
When Jesus was choosing His disciples, at first blush it
looks about as random as can be. He’s walking along the lake and happens to
call out to four fishermen to come and follow Him so He can make them “fishers
of men.” While this is pretty awesome in and of itself, it seems to make no
sense that these four men would simply walk away from everything that they had
known all of their lives to follow this guy. From the accounts in Matthew and
Mark, it looks as if this is the first time that they’ve ever met Jesus. But
when you look at the book of John, you realize something different.
In John, we see Jesus shortly after coming out of the
wilderness where He had been tempted. John the Baptizer sees Him and declares, “Look!
There’s the Lamb of God who will take the sins of the world away!” Andrew and
John (two of those four men called in Matthew and Mark) are with JTB at this
time, and they decide to leave John and follow after Jesus. Jesus notices them
following and asks them what they want. They ask Him where He is staying (this
was a common question asked to Rabbis when certain persons wanted to become
their disciple). He invites them to where He’s staying and He spends the day
with them.
We are then told that Andrew immediately goes and tells
Simon (Peter) about this man they’ve found. He brings Simon to Jesus and Jesus changes
his name right there to Peter. In the chronology of the gospels, we find that
this event takes place right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The calling
of the four fishermen (Peter, Andrew, James and John) comes around one to one
and a half years into the ministry. What does this tell us? It tells us that Jesus
spent significant time with the men He called prior to calling them. This changes everything for the Matthew and
Mark passages and makes perfect sense as to why they would leave everything at
that point to follow Jesus…because they
already had significant relationship with Him.
That’s why when we make discipleship a part of the
rhythm of our lives, people will be ready to allow us to teach them what God
has taught us.
So how are you doing in this area? Are you allowing your
life to be used of God to disciple those around you to become more like His
Son? Or are you keeping it to yourself? Friend, there is nothing more exciting
than watching someone come to understand God the way you do, and when that
happens, you are a disciple maker…just like Jesus commanded you to be.
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