Thursday, October 17, 2013

Discipleship is Not Dead

Have you ever thought about why the Dead Sea is dead? 

No living creature, even seaweed, can survive in its waters.

The Jordan river and some other smaller tributaries flow into the Dead Sea with an estimated 6.5 million tons of water daily. Yet it's still utterly dead.
The only way water can leave its borders is for it to evaporate into the air.


The Dead Sea is dead because it has no outlet.
There is no continual flow.

Isn't this the same as discipleship?

James 2:26 says that faith without deeds is dead.
We can have abundant spiritual input and teaching, but if we're not doing anything with our spiritual gain, we will become spiritually fat. We can be in a continual state of theological learning and gaining knowledge of the Holy, but if we're storing it all up for ourselves and never sharing with others, it isn't actually healthy or beneficial.

John 7:38 says that out of our hearts flow rivers of living water.
Stagnant waters go foul. Where there is a flow, continual input and output, there is life.

Oswald Chambers says, in his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest:
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.

It's not possible to be a disciple of Christ and dead at the same time.
Galatians 2:20 says that I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Following Jesus means dying to myself and coming alive in Him.

And to be alive in Christ means to make disciples. There is no other option.

So if you are a disciple of Jesus, what are your outlets?
Who are you pouring into?
What are you pouring out?

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