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Written by Administrator
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I grew up near an area of extensive thick bushland. As kids we learnt where the creeks were and how to drink from them. You only drank from a creek where the water ran freely and quickly, and then only from the middle. Water to the outside was still and often stagnant.
There’s an obvious parallel in our Christian lives. Being in the centre of what God’s doing keeps us fresh. The more toward the outside we get, the more likely we are to lose that freshness. Why do people move to the outside? Probably because it’s slower and they feel they can control everything. They feel “comfortable” with an easier pace. It might even give them more “me” time. But what at first seems an advantage soon becomes a disadvantage. The heart begins to change. Whatever anticipation and excitement we had slowly drains. We notice the differences little by little. Others begin to see them too.
Your number one priority is your love-relationship with God. Don’t let anything get in the way of enjoying the passion and privilege of being a child of the living God. Whether you live a hectic spiritual lifestyle or not, is not the ultimate issue. Find what works for you. But keep in the middle of God’s stream. Don’t compromise what you’ve discovered and you’ll enjoy a rich and fulfilling life. |
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Written by Geoff Wilson
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Can you have evangelism without discipleship or discipleship without evangelism? In the days of the early church the answer was an emphatic “no.” But what of today? Do we see people responding to a gospel message but showing no desire to take any further steps? Yes we do. And do we see people truly believing they’re maturing in Christ but displaying no heart to share the gospel message with others? Again, yes we do.
Are people today fundamentally different to people 2,000 years ago? People certainly are different, but not in any fundamental way. Then what’s the difference?
Could it be the message we share today is not exactly the same as the message of the early church? The early church preached Christ as Lord (Acts 2:36) and sin as disobedience to Him (Acts 3:22,23) and His standards (Acts 7:51-53; 1 John 3:4). Those who came to Christ came with hearts surrendered to His will. There was no distinction between receiving Christ as Saviour and receiving Him as Lord (Acts 2:36). Conversion led naturally into discipleship.
Discipleship was a method of training where a ‘learner’ apprenticed themselves to a ‘master,’ so they could become like their master. In the New Testament discipleship is a command and not an option (Matthew 28:19). We are to apprentice ourselves to Christ (Matthew 11:28-30; John 15:4-8) so we can become more like Him (Romans 8:29). Did Christ witness to others? Obviously so. True discipleship to Christ then will see us following Christ in evangelism as in each and every other area. Any form of discipleship today that omits evangelism or fails to grow a heart for the unsaved is less than New Testament discipleship. |
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Written by Geoff Wilson
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It has been God’s unchanging right to rule the human heart for as long as human beings have existed. To deny Him that right sets us on a pathway so perceptively described by Paul in Romans 1. There he outlines how refusal to honour God as Sole Ruler takes us down a slippery slope that ends in the trap of uninhibited and perverted body pleasure, if there are no external restraints (society, family). The human body becomes the primary focus for the person who lives without God’s rulership. The progression in our flight from God leads to a life of self gratification without boundaries. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degradation of their bodies with one another (v.24). The feelings become deadened. Like an addictive drug, more and more is needed but satisfies less and less. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind (v.28). The many New Testament descriptions of a mind not yielded to Christ highlight this degradation (eg. Ephesians 4:17-19).
God’s answer is His rightful rule over the human heart. The pathway back begins with the invitation for Christ to rule our heart. This is not a casual prayer. No army casually surrenders. But God responds to honest hearts. The devil will contend all the way, so be prepared. The cry of the early church was ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’ Make it your cry. |
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Written by Geoff Wilson
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We’re probably all familiar with the Great Commission “… go and make disciples of all nations ...” (Matthew 28:19). But if we’re going to “make disciples” of others, we need to be sure we’re disciples ourselves. There were different times when Jesus ‘spelt out’ what becoming His disciple meant. One is recorded in Luke 14:27 “And anyone who does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” The only time someone in Jesus’ day ‘carried their own cross’ was when they were about to be executed. Anyone judged by the Roman authorities to have committed a crime worthy of death was forced to carry probably just the heavy top bar of a cross through the streets. When they reached the place of their death, the top bar would be fixed to another plank and the victim nailed to each. Death could take anything from 12 to 24 hours and was finally due to asphyxiation.
If living as a true disciple of Christ means we have to die, should we spend the rest of our lives putting ourselves to death? In Luke 14:27 quoted above, Jesus said discipleship requires death to self (carrying our own cross) and following Him. These are two sides to the one coin and can never be separated. If you make ‘following Him’ your number one passion, you will increasingly experience death to self. You won’t have to try to do it; it will just happen. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus “for the joy set before him endured the cross …” He was thinking far more of what would follow than the agony of what He was about to endure. We need to do the same. Follow Jesus with all your heart. Live passionately for Him as if nothing else in this life really matters, and you’ll see your old, sin-stained ways begin to change. |
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Written by Geoff Wilson
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The single most dominant theme of both the Old and New Testaments is the kingdom of God. In the New Testament it’s impossible to miss this emphasis. Jesus spoke more about the kingdom of God than every other subject combined.
But what of the Old Testament? Is it as clear? Right from Adam’s creation and placement in the garden, God gave a clear instruction that Adam could eat from any of the trees in the garden except one – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What does the term “the knowledge of good and evil” mean?
In Hebrew culture the “knowledge of good and evil” usually meant moral knowledge – the point at which a child could discriminate between good and evil (right and wrong), and so become morally responsible. This is confirmed in Deuteronomy 1:39 and Isaiah 7:16. So Adam and Eve were to be perpetually like children in their dependence on God to determine what was right and what was wrong for them. God of course did this to protect them. He wanted them to trust Him implicitly.
For Adam and Eve to remain rightly related to God, they had to remain rightly related to God’s word to them. Failure to obey God’s word to them would be failure to obey God. They were safe and secure as long as they implicitly kept God’s word. God ruled their lives without over-ruling their ability to choose for themselves. He simply asked them to let Him make the decisions – something they ultimately rebelled against, and with the direst of consequences for all mankind.
Our relationship to God today is equally determined by our relationship to God’s word. Let God rule your life. How? By letting His Word rule you. |
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