"ARE YOU A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST?"

Good Evening To All

I know this is a different kind of post, but I couldn't help myself. I was reading Rob's "Settled In Heaven"s post a little while ago and started to comment. Before I knew it I looked and it was just almost long enough to be a blog post! As I have said before, I write like I talk! LOL! Anyway, I decided to turn it into just that, a post. Now Rob's blog has all of the scriptures and text. It is a WONDERFUL LESSON on Discipleship, but this post, I guess I kind of dedicated to that specific post as a comment. LOL!

Before I get started on the "meat of my post", I feel that for some reason, God has impressed on my spirit the need to say this. Especially in today's churches, it is much too common place to see the "program" overrun the presence of God, the flowing of the Holy Spirit. It was that way even when I was a little girl. Everything was set down to the minute. Now that I think about it, how do you put a time limit on God? What if the Pastor called for prayer, and someone was ALMOST about to get a touch from God and then the Pastor cut it short to get on with the sermon? That would be a travesty in my eyes, yet it probably happens more than we know. A lot of men tend to forget that the Purpose for the House of Prayer is to focus on God, not man's time table. That is one reason I feel so emphatically about witnessing. If we as disciples of Christ can talk to people, and get them interested in the Word of God, then at least they would have a few tidbit to get them started on their journey. From their they can go to churches and decide in which one they feel the presence of God the most. Which church allows the presence of God to flow freely without inhibition, without a time limit.

I love reading a post that confirms things I believe in, every thing I try to get across to my readers. I can't count the posts which I have tried to convey the importance of our discipleship. As you say, it is our responsibility to Christ to carry on His mission here on earth NOT to Save the lost as He did, but to guide people, plant seeds and give them food for thought to the path toward God. If we don't then I fear we are falling very short of what God expects from us. In Matthew 10:32-33, Jesus says: "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven". (33)But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. It also goes on to say that He does not come to bring peace but a sword, meaning to put father against son, mother against daughter and shall have foes of his own household. What He is saying is that we must LOVE Him MORE than we do our earthly family. We must put HIM first in ALL things.

We as humans seem to have a problem with that. "I have to miss church because my son has a track meet and so on. As far as witnessing, we allow the devil to creep into our thoughts. "They might not want to hear what I have to say". They might laugh at me. I don't know the Bible well enough. What if they ask questions?" All of these questions and statements are excuses. We are putting our carnal nature into play here and our vanity takes over. We don't want to be embarrassed.

I used to feel that way, until I received the Holy Ghost. He gave me boldness like I have NEVER known. I don't think twice about getting into a discussion about God now. I don't however do "cold calling". I can't just walk up to someone and ask if they've been saved, or Do they know about Jesus. The way I do it is start talking about something common, and then GOD finds an opening for His Word to come through, It is so awesome the way He works.

We have a general mentality today, that it's not my job, so and so will do it. We have this idea about everything. Then NOTHING gets done. We cannot afford to have that way of thinking in this arena. As Christians WE are ALL disciples of Christ. We are ALL commissioned to go out and witness to people. I am not saying we are all preachers NO such thing. I am saying however that it is our obligation as a Christian to plant seeds wherever possible

I know there are a lot of people out there like I USED to be. I used to think EVERYONE's heard of Jesus. EVERYONE knows what He did for us. Do you know that's not the case? Oh, they may have heard his name dropped, but they don't know WHO HE IS. It is our job to tell them.

Now to be honest, I've had people come up to me and ask "is this or that" a heaven or hell issue? My answer to them is if you have to ask that question then it's better to act on the side of caution and just do what you KNOW is right. The same with this. I have NO idea if NOT obeying this one commandment of Go ye therefore into all nations and baptize.... would be a heaven or hell issue. I do know that DISOBEDIENCE IS a SIN, and IF you repent ( change your ways) if will be forgiven. If not , well, that's a different story. So, people NEED to pay more attention to obeying God's Word and doing what He says EVEN if it's not one of the TEN Commandments.

I think that's were we get messed up. For some reason so many people Pick out the Ten Commandments and follow them "pretty much", but as far as the rest of His Word, don't really look at it as what God wants US to DO. We delude ourselves into thinking, "I've gone up to the altar and told Jesus that I accept Him as my Savior, I'm Saved, and then we go about business as usual. We forget that in His Word He says "if you LOVE ME, you will keep my commandments. We forget that He says, Thou shalt have NO OTHER Gods before ME, yet we put all kinds of things ahead of Him. What about love thy neighbor as thy self? How many of us don't want to be bothered when we see someone in need of a ride somewhere, or money for food? I sit here and thoughts like that just come flooding in. It makes me ashamed. How can I be that way, and STILL say I'm a Child of God?

I'm telling you, the time is getting closer and closer for Jesus' return. Inevitably there will be a point when it will be too late to repent and turn to God. I may turn some peoples ears off right here, but I feel I have to say it. Without REPENTANCE, We Will Not Get Into Heaven. I can say this with certainty because God CANNOT dwell with SIN. To rid ourselves of sin we MUST REPENT. That is the only way.

I don't mean to sound like those "DOOMSDAY" people you see walking on the street corners yelling out "the end is near", but I do know Christ is coming. I do know that we have been seeing signs of the latter days since the 1940's, (if not before), so this tells me that we are that much closer to His coming back.

I am so thankful that God sent me someone to WAKE ME UP out of the "trance" I was in. A trance that had me walking around in a dangerous state of mind. The state of mind that said I was saved just because I said a few words.

My precious friends, Being Saved is a LIFE-TIME journey. Yes, Going to the Lord, confessing your sins to Him, surrendering to Him, being Baptized in His name. That's a huge part of it. The thing is, it's not all of it. Paul said "I die daily". This means he repented daily. He asked forgiveness and turned away from sins that he had committed. Everyday brought new sins against him, because he was human. The ONLY sinless ONE is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. We MUST keep in mind that Sin cannot enter into heaven, and the only way to rid ourselves is by asking forgiveness AND repenting. That way if (God forbid) anything happens to us, we know we are right with God and know where our eternal home will be.

Well, all this came from reading a Wonderful post and wanting to convey my feelings about it, so Rob, here is your comment! LOL!

Good Afternoon to ALL and May God Bless!