Transcription
Our Lord Jesus has given us the mandate corporately as a church, as a ministry, and also individually to follow up every new convert and every new member of the church to become real and true disciples. The process of achieving this is discipleship. Discipleship is the act of teaching converts to observe and obey the commandments of the Lord and also begin to also practice the ways of the Lord. Discipleship is central to the growth of the believer. It ensures that the crowd becomes an army of believers and converts become believers.
The process of discipleship: Why are you expected to raise disciples?
One: It's a command. It's a command (Matthew 28:16-20).
Two: To prevent fake teachers from misleading converts and members of the church. To prevent fake teachers from misleading members and converts of the church.
Three: To ensure they are well-grounded in the word, well-grounded in the word of God, to face and overcome the challenges of life, the challenges of faith, the challenges they will also experience in their decision for Christ and in their journey in the Lord.
Four: Why are you expected to raise disciples? So that converts can mature to the level of reproducing other disciples, thereby multiplying the kingdom of God.
Five: God needs human instruments to groom or raise new disciples. Purpose: He uses human instruments for this purpose.
Six: To save people who are interested in God from being misled into the wrong religion. To save people who are interested in God from being misled into the wrong religion. When you are a convert, you'll think everybody that calls himself a Christian is truly of the Lord and will make heaven. No, but the moment you become a disciple, your eyes will have been opened to understand the difference.
Seven: To purge the people of the spirit of religion. To purge the people of the spirit of religion. The only name for prayer is the name of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus Christ. Learn how to pray. What will defend you when the devil comes at night when you sleep is not by putting your Bible under your pillow, not by putting your Bible under your pillow, hiding anointing oil, one bottle of anointing oil under your pillow. Say, "With this one, they cannot show up." Or by wearing a chaplet. You wear a chaplet around your neck, you wear it around your wrist. Forget those things. Forget those things. Pray, and when you pray well before you sleep, they will not show up. They will not show up. If they show up, they will face fire. You know, many of you are already on the level of mature disciples for years. You have experience of what we are preaching here.
Eight: Because of the massive end-time harvest, there is a need for more disciples. There is a need for more disciples to complete the work.
So, the last thing we share is: How can you disciple effectively?
One: Identify a potential convert and begin to intercede for his or her salvation and spiritual revival. Identify a potential convert and begin to intercede for his or her spiritual revival (Acts 18:26).
Two: Invite the potential convert or convert to church service and programs. Invite the targeted persons to church service and programs. Invite them to church and church programs. Invite such potential converts to church service and programs. Invite them to special programs where their needs can be met.
Three: Discuss with a convert about your life, their needs, and their desires. It's not only about heaven. Discuss with them about their life, how things are with you, their needs, their desires.
Four: With the understanding of certain areas of their lives, challenges, and aspirations, share relevant testimonies with them. Share relevant testimonies with them, especially testimonies that resonate with their life journey, the challenges they faced, their needs, their aspirations, their expectations. Share testimonies to show them how God has done it over and over.
Five: Develop a closer relationship with them. Develop a closer personal relationship (Acts 18:26).
Six: Help them in their needs. Help them in their needs. Help them (Acts 20:35). Help them in their needs.
Seven: Share in their worries. Share in their worries.
Eight: Pray with a convert and collect their prayer points. Pray with that convert and collect their prayer points.
Nine: Visit the convert as often as you can. Visit the convert as often as you can. However, can everybody say, "However"? So, you remember I told you this one on number nine. Aha! Be sensitive of your marital status. Be sensitive of your marital status. If you are a single sister and your convert is a single man or a married man, don't go alone. In fact, for some of them, don't even go in twos. Go in three or four. Be sensitive of your marital status. Be sensitive of your marital statuses.
Ten: Sow into their lives materially. Sow into their lives materially, and to a large extent, let it be at your discretion, not at their request. Because there are people that are also taking advantage of Christians that are evangelizing. There are many people today taking advantage of Christians that are reaching out to raise disciples of Christ, and one of the ways they take advantage is to pretend that they are following up or responding to your message, and then they begin to submit to you their different needs, either for accommodation or for this or for that. So, some cases are genuine, but unfortunately, especially now, a lot of fraudulent and deceptive cases abound even amongst the people we encounter. So, sow into their lives materially, but use your own discretion to do this. Sometimes, make observations. You could hear things from them. Pray with them. Let the Holy Spirit later minister to you if you are in a position to do something, and then you can do so. Let us not give to a deceptive person that has no time for God what we could have given to people that are ready for God, because you may end up giving all that you have to give to the wrong person.
Eleven: Encourage them in faith and in works. Encourage them in faith and in works. There must be a balance.
Twelve: You must live a good, exemplary life. You must live a good, exemplary life. I was at a service of songs some few days ago, and you know, we heard very beautiful testimonies about the woman that had passed on to be with the Lord, and it was so clearly acknowledged that she was very instrumental in bringing, drawing her husband to become closer to the Lord. And then the friend of the husband also testified that his own wife too is the one that has also helped in drawing him closer to the Lord. So, the first of all, observe the lifestyle of their wives, and they could see, especially over time, that it was real. Eventually, together with all the prayers, they started responding to their invitations to come to the wife's church, to come to programs. This becomes easier when you are living your own lifestyle, manifest the things you preach and teach.
Thirteen: Encourage the converts to join the teaching class for disciples in your church, in this ministry. It is called the Believers' Class. Others is called, some others have different names. Some will call it a membership class. Encourage them to join. It is very compulsory.
Fourteen: Teach them the fundamentals of salvation. The fundamentals. There are some things that are key. One of them is that they must cut off from anything that is of the devil. If they belong to any society, they must renounce that society immediately. If they have charms, they have idols, they have any shrine, they have anything from anywhere, it must be surrendered to be burnt by fire and disposed of. And they must never go to any questionable spiritual entity any longer, whether it's a group or an individual. If it's clear that person is not of God, such as some we have mentioned earlier, they should stay clear.
Fifteen: Encourage them to be a worker in any of the departments in the local church. Encourage them to become a worker. Please help me turn to your neighbor and say, "Neighbor, neighbor, it's time for you to become a worker." Say it boldly. "It's time for you to become a worker in the church of God." Now, help me tell that neighbor, say, "Neighbor, neighbor, you that is telling me this thing, are you a worker in the house of God?" Now, let's answer one another this afternoon. Are you a worker in the house of God? You that is asking me this afternoon. Praise God. So, encourage them to become workers in the house of God. It will help you. It will help your advancement in your spiritual work and your walk with God and your relationship with God. It will help you.
Sixteen: Teach them to practice what they have learned. Teach them to practice what they have learned, including spiritual things. Ask them to pray. Ask your son to pray. Ask your daughter to pray. Now that your husband is coming to church, ask him to pray. Let them practice it.
Seventeen: Encourage them to also preach the word of God. Encourage them to preach, to share the word. There was a time we were doing the bus evangelism every Saturday, and we gathered in church. Saturday two, we paired our members and workers in pairs of two, and you know, you pick a location. We all take off from the church. You pick a location, and then you eventually will go to that location. One person will preach on the way and coming back, the other person will preach. And it helped everyone to break that yoke of shyness, and most of them learned it for the first time through that exercise, through that program, through that initiative.
Eighteen: Teach them to also disciple others as they begin to stand in the Lord. Teach them to also disciple others. Let them also follow up others that are now coming in.
Nineteen: Pray for them on a daily basis. Pray for them on a daily basis. Pray for them, even when they are standing. Pray for them on a daily basis.
Twenty: Disciple your family members as well. It's very, very important. Sometimes it takes longer based on the law of familiarity. It takes longer, but you must be persistent. You must be consistent, and God will honor your efforts with answered prayers.
And there are benefits of becoming a real disciple:
One: Obedience brings blessings.
Two: You have access to the covenant of answered prayers (John 15:16). You have access to the covenant of answered prayers.
Three: You become a vessel unto honor in the hand of God because you have now become a disciple. God can use you. In Acts chapter 9 verse 15, you could see our Lord Jesus going to a disciple, not one of the apostles. A disciple gave him a major assignment to go to the house of Saul, now later called Paul, and he said, "You will also lay your hands on him, and he will receive a healing miracle," and it happened. He was a disciple, not an apostle at that time. You become a vessel of honor that God can use for so many things, countless things.
Four: You become a faithful servant to whom much will be committed. A faithful servant to whom much will be committed.
And lastly, there are crowns of rewards that have been prepared for true disciples of Christ, and becoming a true disciple, functioning in that capacity, would position you for these eternal crowns of reward that all the true disciples of Christ would be honored with, starting from the judgment seat of Christ after the rapture. Praise ye the Lord.