As many of you know, I have long studied the works of Oswald Chambers, in fact I just recently was able to purchase a copy of all his books, from which many of his daily challenges are taken. As usual, every once in a while I read something he taught to his students that really gets my attention. And the other morning his message went straight to the center of the focus of Walk With God Ministries … discipleship.
“Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view – so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is all right. Our work begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God ‘s sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be God’s witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others. Oswald Chambers.
That is the foundation beneath the calling that God has given to Walk With God Ministries. We all came to the cross at a moment of confession and repentance, but the problem is that many have stayed at the foot of the cross and have not set out on the journey to spiritual maturity. And more often than not, their failure to move forward is the result of no one committing to disciple them, to help them understand the plan of God as clearly set forth in His Word … to be conformed into the image [character] of Jesus. And part of the reason is that so often those who have shared the Gospel fail to take the time and make the commitment to get the new believer discipled – often times because they have not been discipled themselves.
The Holy Spirit calls and prepares the heart to receive the Gospel; He is the One who saves. We “do not” save souls, but we are responsible for discipling them and Jesus made that very clear …
Matt 28:18-20 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. NKJV
Yes Rejoice … rejoice in seeing new believers well established on the journey from the cross to spiritual maturity.