How do you view your life, as a consumer or an Investor?
Is life a currency to be spent? Or a commodity to accumulate?
How you view life affects everything; relationships, career, and your destiny.
Jesus gave a powerful lesson about investing our lives in the book of Matthew, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; “but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24).
God is the investor
He has invested capital into each of our lives in so many ways. God’s desire to pour abundance spiritual and emotional capital into your life. Jesus is in the business of turning nothing into something. Turning plain water into wine. Taking a few fish and loafs of bread and feeding multitudes of people. This is what God wants to do in your life.
Jesus recruited a team of men and invested in them by:
* Loving them, * Leading them on spiritual adventures, * Modeling a life of prayer, * Let them see supernatural answers to their prayers, * Sent them on assignments to preach and to comfort the broken, * Treated them likes sons, correcting mistakes, and marking their progress.
God invests in us so, we can invest in others
God wants each of us to pour into others. We are changed, so others can be changed. God calls this, “Making Disciples”. The last command Jesus gave before his ascension into heaven. The heart of the Great Commission. “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:18-20).
He instructed them to make more disciples and to build spiritual reproducing communities called the local church. Through them, he guided the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever seen.
He did not say, go and make Christians.
A disciple is a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Our focus must be on disciple making. This is the soil that everything else in the Christian life grows from.
Here are a few things I have learned as a disciple maker for over forty years.
(1.) Disciples are made in an atmosphere of revival
Revival means, seeing people saved, healed, delivered, and filled with Holy Spirit. A disciple learns faithfulness to the house of God where the focus is on the Word of God being preached.
(2.) Disciples are made through involvement
Disciple makers trust men and women with real ministry responsibility. They put opportunities for ministries into their hands even though a disciple may make mistakes. A true disciple making church will never be a perfect, totally organized, everything polished and perfect because you are allowing disciples to learn and grow by giving them ministry opportunities.
(3.) Disciples are made through Impartation
This is, personal influence and impartation of spirit that gives disciples clear reference points in life. The principle is a spiritual father to a son in the faith. “The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit (intrust) these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Here is the two big questions?
Who is investing in me? Who am I investing in?
The reason church exist is to invest in others. To go and make disciples.
I will follow this up in the next blog . . .