Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 123:1
Lord, I lift up my eyes to You;
to You who sit enthroned in heaven.
Show me Your will and Your ways! Amen.
Reading
And so we return to the passage which set our direction for the entire year:
“Go and make disciples of all nations … teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (v.19-20)
This command is the reason we are searching the pages of the New Testament for “everything Jesus commanded us”.
But today, let’s focus on the command to “Go and make disciples of all nations.”
Ours is meant to be a constantly outward-looking faith. God’s love extends to every human being on the face of the earth. We never have to wonder whether the person in front of us is loved by God. They are! We never need to wonder whether God wants an eternal relationship with them. He does! And we never need to question whether they are someone we ought to be inviting into that relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. We ought!
That is not to say that we approach everyone we meet with a “bull in a china shop” mentality – smashing down the door to speak to them about Jesus. That would be foolish and out of step with the Holy Spirit. Instead we ought to be striving to stay in step with the Holy Spirit in reaching out to them. After all, He knows them better than we ever could, and He has already been at work in their lives for a long time, drawing them into a life-changing love-relationship with God the Father, through faith in Jesus. There is tremendous freedom in realising that, as disciple-makers, we are simply joining the Spirit in His work, and offering ourselves to Him as instruments and mouthpieces of His tender work of drawing people Home.
Will you join the Holy Spirit in the beautiful work of disciple-making today? Will you stay sensitive to the Spirit and be His instrument and mouthpiece to issue the invitation to people to come home to the Father through faith in Jesus?
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn one or more of these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will joyfully join the Holy Spirit in His beautiful work of disciple-making!
- I will stay sensitive to the Spirit and strive to be His instrument and mouthpiece!
- At every opportunity, I will issue gentle invitations to people to come home to the love of God through faith in Jesus.
Holy Spirit, I offer myself to You. Please use me to draw other people home to the love of the Father today. Amen.
Dave's Diary 