DISCIPLE

A Saint "Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb ... and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword" (Isaiah 49:1-2). A saint is made by God, 'He made me.' Then do not tell God He is a bungling workman. We do that whenever we say 'I can't.' To say 'I can't' literally means we are too strong in ourselves to depend on God. 'I can't pray in public; I can't talk in the open air.' Substitute 'I won't', and it will be nearer the truth. The thing that makes us say 'I can't is that we forget that we must rely entirely on the creative purpose of God and on this characteristic of perfect finish for God. Much of our difficulty comes because we choose our own work – 'Oh well, this is what I am fitted for.' Remember that Jesus took a fisherman and turned him into a shepherd. That is symbolic of what He does all the time. The idea that we have to cons...

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind. Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of u...

by James Cymbala Have you noticed that whenever you ask a fellow Christian these days about his or her church, the subject invariably goes to attendance. Question: "Tell me about your church. How is the Lord's work coming along there?" Answer: "Well be had three hundred on Sunday, I'd say." When I ask pastors the same question, I get the same answer—plus two others: "Membership is at five-fifty, we have just finished a new education wing, and our gross income this year will top out at about four hundred thousand." Attendance, buildings, and cash. A-B-C: The new holy trinity. Such a thing would never have happened in Peter and Paul's day. For one thing, they had no buildings to call their own. They met in people's homes,in public courtyards, sometimes even in caves. As for a budget, they seemed to have dispensed most of their funds in helping the poor. How large was the attendance in the Antioch church? Berea? Phillipi? R...

by William MacDonald True Christianity is an all-out commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Savior is not looking for men and women who will give their spare evenings to Him – or their weekends or their years of retirement. Rather He seeks those who will give Him first place in their lives. “He looks today, as He has ever looked, not for crowds drifting aimlessly in His track, but for individual men and women whose underlying allegiance will spring from their having recognized that He wants those who are prepared to follow the path of self-renunciation which He trod before them” H. A. Evan Hopkins. Nothing less than unconditional surrender could ever be a fitting response to His sacrifice at Calvary. Love so amazing, so divine, could never be satisfied with less than our souls, our lives, our all. The Lord Jesus made stringent demands on those who would be His disciples - demands that are all but overlooked in this day of luxury-living. Too often we look upon Christian...

“Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.” 1 Samuel 6:13 Beth Shemesh was a city in the territory of the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:10), about 14 miles to the west of the city of Jerusalem. It was originally a city given to Sun worship, but when conquered by Joshua it was given to the Levites (Joshua 21:16). Therefore its inhabitants were Levites, and they had a problem. Israel foolishly took the ark into battle as a good luck charm, and the Philistines captured it. For seven long months the ark of the LORD had been in the land of the Philistines, leaving Israel “Ichabod” (“the glory departed”), as a mark of divine displeasure. Surely among the godly minority in Israel, no one longed for the return of Jehovah’s ark more than the Levites. But since the armies of Israel had lost the ark in battle, what could a group of Levites possibly do to secure its return? They cou...

The Academic Method Is Not Discipling Bible Colleges and Seminaries do not make disciples. Taking x number of classes and maintaining a certain acceptable grade average until graduation does not change a person or give him experience or maturity. No wonder as we read the New Testament we see that NO Apostle ever started a school or institute. That was not the apostolic method, because it was not the Lord's method, and they learned from Him. Consider this insight: “Biblical training is not concerned with intellectual instruction alone. One of the great difficulties with our educational system in Western society is that we all too frequently train people not for personal change, but for the ability to pass tests... When your goal is to mold the character of an individual, you pursue that task much differently than when your goal is to enable him to answer questions.” Jay Adams: How To Help People Change , p. 194 "Taking classes or courses" and getting a degree is not in...

These insights by Martin and Deidre Bobgan were published way back in 1989, but need to be passed around again and introduced to a generation that has grown up believing the myth of "mental illness". Pass it on! THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS The terms mental disease , mental illness , and mental disorder are popular catch-alls for all kinds of problems of living, most of which have little or nothing to do with disease. As soon as a person's behavior is labeled "illness," treatment and therapy become the solut ions. If, on the other hand, we consider a person to be responsible for his behavior, we should deal with him in the areas of education, faith, and choice. If we label him "mentally ill," we rob him of the human dignity of personal responsibility and the divine relationship by which problems may be met. B ecause the term mental illness throws attitudes and behavior into the medical realm, it is important to examine it's accuracy. In discu...