Can't say "no" to your Lord

If God is the Lord of your life, you cannot say no to Him.
If God is your Lord, you will always say yes to Him.

Quote paraphrased from Experiencing God by Blackberry


Something worth thinking about...

An idea that worked

I have to give Campus Crusade for Christ credit for this idea first.
The idea:
Website on a business card. For Campus Crusade for Christ, during Halloween in Athens, we passed out business cards of a Crusade website. I am not sure how successful that was...

But this week I passed out business cards with my church's website on it. I preached the sermon at my church on Sunday....so I wanted my friends to get a chance to listen, so I posted the link on a card and passed it out.

What is funny is that this time, it worked. People who knew me wanted to go to the church website and listen to me.


Alex

Thoughts on discipleship

I think the church has gotten off track in some ways when it comes to discipleship. I want to be an instrument of change if God wants to use me in some way for a discipleship revolution if you will.

Loving people and remembering that they are fallen has really challenged me and made me step back a little bit to remember that what we are dealing with. Sinful people that need delivered, then developed, then deployed...and at each step there will be rejection. there will be hardships. There will need to be caution and extra care taken at each step of the way. So this principle helped bring me down to reality and challenged me. How can we make these changes that I think we so need but also in light of the fact that men are men. Sometimes I have not been a delicate discipler, but I need to be more so.

I desire to build in men at my secular world as well as my sacred world (church.) My strategy might be different but my goal is the same for both: deliver, develop, deploy and see reproduction!

This course influences me to pray for my lost friends at work that I want to build into. It influences me to pray for men to build into wherever I am. This course influences and challenges me to lead the way. I cannot just preach discipleship, I have got to be doing it. Not just on the receiving end but also on the building into new guys end of it.

The nature of mankind greatly should affect the method and approach to ministry.

All of us, men, come from a fallen background. We are all hurting, no one has it all together. Also man has to chose, we cannot force anything on anyone, nor should we try.

The concept that I personally need help with is love. I pray almost everyday that the Lord will give me love for the people I need to serve today. I need love to be patient with the lost. I need love to reach out to the lost. I need love when I am teaching my classes at church, yes I need to love even the saints, not just the sinners. I am not asking for “love” in general, that I can muster, but the love of Christ to work through me. Because I am from a fallen background too. I make mistakes a lot and my love is useless. I need Christ to fill me with his compassion and love for my flock and for my lost friends.

Also I need patience. Similarly, not my own patience but Christ’s. I need to realize that man will make his own decisions. I am here to help, but ultimately I have already made the decision to follow Christ completely. I cannot expect others to have the same attitudes, response, commitment that I may or may not have. Everyone has their own experiences and thoughts about God. I should not try to force them to follow in my footsteps, although sometimes I really agonize for them – that they (the lost and my disciples) will follow me (in discipleship or in salvation respectively.)

I am not this “great” Christian. I do not want to come across as an arrogant, I do everything right Christian, cause I do not! Forgive me if I have sounded this way.