You See Bones, I See an Army (cont,)

Down to the wire on this book by Floyd McClung.  Continuing with the last post on The Heart of Everything.

Passion and purpose come at no less a price than Jesus and his disciples paid to possess them.

"I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.  He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  If anyone serves me, let him follow me."

Jesus is the grain that fell to the ground and died.  Those who have loved and obeyed him down through the centuries are the disciples of Jesus, the new grain that his seed produces.  But notice the qualifier:  these disciples of Jesus are people who have lost their lives.  They have died to the cares of the world.  They have taken up their cross, followed Jesus, and are devoted to obeying him with singleness of mind and heart.  They are faithfully and fiercely focused on obeying Jesus' command to make disciples.

Jesus chose personal investment in people's lives as the primary way he did church.  The Sunday-centric model of church will not change the world.  Some think the church started on the day of Pentecost, but I disagree.  Jesus led the first New Testament church.  He modeled for us how to do church by the way he gathered and invested in the lives of a few men and women.  He modeled a new way of doing church.  He gathered, equipped, and mobilized faithful men and women into a movement of devoted followers.  This kind of one-on-one intentional relationship is the key to helping people get freed from their brokenness and turned on to serving Jesus.  Discipleship isn't a school or program, but a lifestyle of passion and purpose passed on through personal investment and involvement in one another's lives.

Discipleship is helping another person to know, love, and obey Jesus.

This same pattern is repeated throughout church history.  One amazing example is a Sunday school teacher named Edward Kimball back in the 1880's.  Kimball began to strike up a friendship with a few young men in his Sunday school class.  Kimball was particularly committed to a fellow classmate fresh from the farmlands who had begun working in a nearby shoe shop.  One day Kimball decided to visit his new friend at work.  He entered the shop, found him in the back room, and struck up a conversation.  Later he led his friend to a personal relationship with Jesus.

When describing this young man years later, Kimball said, "I have met few friends whose minds were spiritually darker, or who seemed more unlikely ever to become a Christian."  But Kimball's faith in his new friend and his investment of time and personal mentoring made a huge impact.  His new friend was D.L. Moody, who went on to become an evangelist who led tens of thousands to Jesus.  Eventually Moody invested in the life of a man he met in England, named F.B. Meyer.  Meyer was a pastor who resisted Moody's evangelistic zeal and fiery preaching style, but responded when Moody invited him to the States to spend time together.  Meyer was deeply impacted by Mood's personal life, more so than his preaching.

Meyer in turn influenced a man named J. Wilber Chapman who decided, as a result of his friendship with Meyer, to go into full-time evangelistic ministry.  One of Chapman's disciples was a man named Billy Sunday.  Sunday in turn spent time discipling a group of businessmen in North Carolina.  After years of praying together, these men were prompted by God to invite an evangelist named Mordecai Ham to speak to a citywide gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina.  During one of the meetings conducted by Ham, a young teenager came forward and gave his life to the Lord.  His name was Billy Graham.

Edward Kimball started a chain reaction in 1880 that eventually reached the world's most influential evangelist, Billy Graham.  By investing in a few people's lives, these men passed on to each other what had been given to them.  They followed the example begun by Jesus when he spent time with a few young men many years before, pouring himself into their lives.

You can have that kind of impact on people.  Start with who you know.  Who can you influence today?  Call them up and invite them to coffee.  It's that easy.  It's that simple.  God can use you if you avail yourself to Him.  Hop on the chain.  If you don't see the benefits of your investment in this lifetime, you will when you get to heaven. 

Blessings on this rainy Wednesday.