In our last two Disciple posts, we took a look at new ways of thinking and new priorities.  I sure hope that you did the homework from last week which was to add a certain question to your daily prayer. If you missed it, you can catch up here. Armed with a new way of thinking and a new set of personal priorities that are in line with God’s priorities, it’s time to become intentional.

what I mean by intentional is simply this:  If we are going to obey God’s command to make disciples, then we must make it a point to do so.

Gee, that’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?  Sadly, not many of us do so! Speaking for myself only, the idea of making disciples, or helping other Christians grow in their spiritual maturity was, at one time, only a matter of having someone come to me with a question.  I was very good at handling the “teachable moment” but what I didn’t do was to deliberately anticipate the question ahead of time and help a person to find the answer before he or she even thought of the question.  To put it another way, I was not very adept at paying enough attention to other people to realize where they were in their lives unless we were good friends. As a result, I was a really helpful buddy and a poor maker of disciples.

We need to keep in mind that our Commission from our Lord is to make disciples who make disciples, and the object is to be able to mentor a person from a state of searching unbelief all the way through to the point where they can do the same thing.  Since there are stages of spiritual growth just like there are stages of physical and emotional growth, we need to be listening carefully to what people say as they grow in their relationships with Jesus, for they will tell us exactly where they are in the process.  I realize that this is a big chunk of information, so I won’t try to explain it all in one post,  I think that for today we will have accomplished quite a lot by just getting a good grip on the idea of being and intentional maker of disciples.

Thus, for the next few days, make an effort to listen to what people say to you; more of an effort that you ever have before.  Notice not only what they say but the feelings behind it.  Are they expressing inner peace or inner turmoil?  Are they expressing qualities that are like those of our Lord, or are they coming from the point of view of the culture around us? At the same time, it might be a good idea to examine what we are saying and doing.  Are we expressing the love of Christ in what we do and say?

You might want to take a look at yesterday’s post Do we Walk the Walk? and today’s earlier post Amazing Love for some ideas.

Next time, we will study the levels of spiritual maturity and how you can tell where people are in the growth process.  See you then!