Disciple of Christ

Disciple of Christ. What does it mean to be one of these?


Well, let me start from what it is not. It is not working in ministry. It is not volunteering at a homeless shelter. It is not going to church. These are all great things but they are not by definition a disciple of Christ.


This summer, I thought a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Christ and realized I defined it in my life by "doing." So if I wasn't "doing" then I was not a disciple of Christ. CRAP. On top of a busy schedule, I need to DO something in order be considered one of these? I give up.


Good news. It is NOT doing.


In greek, disciple is maqhthv" (matheˉteˉs) which refers generally to any “student,” “pupil,” “apprentice,” or “adherent,” as opposed to a “teacher.” Now hang with me on this one. When does a student get up in the middle of class and start teaching the other classmates multiplication when he has never done it himself? NEVER. That's impossible! But, that student sits under the teaching of that teacher, learns multiplication backwards and forwards. Then, that student could start helping their peers with multiplication. Pretty soon this student is now tutoring other students. So a disciple learns first, then acts second, spreading the knowledge of what they learned.


Let's look at an example from the bible. Luke 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

   ⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I love Martha in this. I have been Martha so many times. She is (excuse the language) PISSED at her sister for being seemingly "lazy." Oh the times I have felt that way towards others in my life. I can't stand sitting still and can't stand people who sit still....Yet, what did Jesus say. "You are worried and upset over many things, but few are needed." In other words..."girl, chill out and quit trying to DO without me teaching you HOW to, first. REST." We do not like to rest. We feel lazy, apathetic and useless if we are not doing. YET, Jesus (remember him, the one we are supposed to be like) was telling Martha to sit at his feet, with her sister, and LEARN from him. How often do we get some crazy, exciting, can't-sit-still-or-I-may-pee-my-pants idea and act on it too soon. OR...suffocate something that is good because we got impatient in the wait (ouch!). We are not God...I repeat, we are not God. Is Christ in us, YES, but sometimes we think we know more about the way the world should run than God does. That is just silly but I do it all the time.

So, if being a disciple of Christ is sitting still long enough to listen and learn from the GREAT teacher, then when does action come into play?

The great commission, which I spoke on in my last entry, is to go and make disciples of all the nations. There is indeed action in that. We are not called to just sit at the feet of Christ and never get up to go out and spread the good news of what we were taught. But the key is to learn FIRST. When Jesus gave the great commission to his disciples, what happened before that? They had spent three years LEARNING from him. Now, I am not saying you need to spend three years before you ever go out and do anything for Christ again, but, I am saying that we are INEFFECTIVE in being disciples of Christ if we NEVER sit at his feet and learn from him so that we can be sent out!

In Young Life we have something called Campaigner's. This is a time for the high school and middle school girl's (separately) to get together with their Young Life leader's and study the bible. We talk about life, God and how the two collide. We dissect scripture. We pray together. We laugh a lot. We learn together what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Why? Not only so we can grow in our faith, but so we can go out and tell other's about this love we have found in Him.

I love that I get to tell lost kids about Christ. I love getting to see those kids come to know Him. I love getting to love those kids who still don't know Him. I am passionate about this. But I am called, to make disciples. I cannot just TELL kids about Christ, I need to show them what it looks like to follow him too and to show them the greatest example of it through encouraging them to look at him, Jesus.

So being a disciple of Christ is submitting to his teaching, sitting at his feet to learn and then taking what he has taught us and going and living it out!

I could work for Young Life, see tons of results and "do" a ton, but I will eventually burn out and become ineffective if I don't take the time to stop and learn from him.

I am giving you permission to STOP, rest and learn from him so that you can be the BEST of what he created you for. There will be seasons of feeling useless but trust me...in those "hidden" seasons, you are learning far more that you realize now for those season where you are called to "go out." I wish I would of known this before I started in this ministry....a lot of horrible moments of burn-out could of been avoided :).

So, take courage in knowing that whether you are feeling most effective in what God has called you to or you are in a "waiting" room for what's next, he is preparing you. He is beckoning you to come and sit at his feet (just like Mary) and learn. There is no sweeter place to be then at HIS feet (and his feet DON'T smell...b/c I hate feet and that would just be horrible ;) ).

Life Unhidden.

"The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions" -Oswald Chambers


Life has been quite interesting lately. In the midst of change, I have found a whole new perspective on what it means to be a child of God. My church, Door of Hope has been going through the Beatitudes for the past 5 weeks and it has wrecked my view on what we are REALLY called to live like. I know I will probably write a VERY LONG blog post on all I have learned from this, so stayed tuned.


I have had a lot of time to reflect lately on life. I have realized just how much I strive for successfulness  even if that means I abandon faithfulness. Now this sounds horrible and it is! Working for a non-profit Christian organization, I think that my purpose is to be SO successful at my job because IT'S FOR THE KINGDOM! So, if I can get 200 kids to Young Life club and disciple 100 and send 1,000 kids to camp from my area each year, then I have SUCCEEDED! Wrong.


Truth is....this is not the point of why the Lord has called me to this. When I felt the Lord calling me to go on Young Life staff, there was no voice saying, "And I need you to be the most successful person at this in the world by getting a ton of kids to club and camp." No. The calling was the same as yours. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19


 So if this is what we are called to, why do we make it so formulated? And how do we measure success?


My guess is that we make things formulated because of longing for control. We want control because then we will always know the outcome. So if I build a formula of what I believe will make me successful in life (for the KINGDOM..ha.) then I can ensure that I will never fail. Oh, but what an endless and losing battle this will be. Success is not measured by any gauge we use. Success is, in reality, faithfulness to living a life hidden with Christ in God. Jesus lived 30 years in obscurity, hidden in God. Although we know little about those years of his life, I know he did not spend it thinking about anything but his Father's call. He was not concerned with success as the world had measured it. Success was remaining in unwavering and close relationship with the Father. He was about his Father's business, not the world's.


But we don't just struggle with this in a job....we struggle this in how other's see us.


I have felt weighed down and broken in the past couple months and at some point I realized that I did not believe I had anything to offer because of it. How can I be successful AND broken? How can someone love me when I am broken. Those two don't go hand and hand. Yet, I have seen the Lord work through me in the midst my brokenness more in the last month, then I have EVER seen him work in my life. I have pressed in and hard to him, I have wept more tears than I knew existed in the human body and have felt his presence covering me constantly. I am dependent. I literally cannot make it without Him. I was scared at first for my Young Life girls to see me like this. I am the leader. I need to be strong for them. Yet, I can not fake it. I am undone. 


The miracle of it all is that never in all the years of doing Young Life have I had girls want to meet with me more. I asked one of them yesterday, "why do you still want to hang with me, when I am so sad?" She said, "Because it is comforting to know you bleed too. I want to be around someone who not only loves God as passionately as you do, but who is honest that life is hard sometimes and we just need to be real with that." You see my friends, THIS IS IT. We think we are safe behind our masks. We think we can survive this life by not dealing with our hurt and pain. We think we can just stuff it and move on. Yet, is that living a life hidden in Christ with God in our everyday human condition? No. Gosh, the destruction I have witnessed in lives around me, people I love SO deeply and even in my own life because of this very issue. We are called to live life in Christ, UNHIDDEN before him, yet our lives hidden IN him. The only road to healing is life in Christ and surrender in that. Life with the mask off, totally living as we are. 


So...if you are broken-hearted, be broken-hearted in a life hidden in Christ. If you are ashamed, know the blood of Christ has covered a multitude of sin and go to him with all of it and rest in a life hidden in him. Even if life is sweet for you, the sweetness comes from Christ and a life hidden in him. Don't hide from your pain, don't hide from difficulty, don't hide from being as you are right now. Walk through it with faithfulness in trusting that ONLY through a life hidden in Christ will healing come. HEALING WILL COME, you saint!


There is hope too in this. When I find myself doubting the healing that can come in my life or in someone's life whom I love, I remember this truth. We CANNOT be hidden in Christ and NOT be healed by him too. Healing is happening and that brings so much hope to my heart. We are not stuck in our current condition because Christ is setting us free daily and renewing us daily, so much so that one day we will look back on these days and smile at HIS faithfulness in our lives. Even if at times we are "faithless, HE WILL remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself."


This is good news.

Jesus Calling

That is the name of the devotional that my boss gave all of us Young Life staffer's for Christmas this year. I spoke about it in my last entry. Upon receiving it, a lot of us were thinking, "oh great, just what we need...another devotional." That is meant to sound ungrateful, I am so grateful, but working in a Christian non-profit company, this is the most common gift you are given....and you have a book shelf FULL of them. YET, this devotional is LIKE NO OTHER. I opened it on a day this past December, in which I was feeling VERY attacked and wanting to throw in the towel with not only Young Life but living in the Northwest. The entire devotional is written from the perspective of Jesus speaking directly to us...a love letter. The entry for that day said this:
"Don't be surprised by the fiery attacks on your mind.When you struggle to find Me and to live in My Peace, don't let discouragement set in. You are engaged in a massive warfare, spiritually speaking. The evil one abhors your closeness to Me, and his demonic underlings are determined to destroy our intimacy. When you find yourself in the thick of battle call upon My Name, "Jesus, help me!" At that instant, the battle becomes Mine; your role is simply to trust Me as I fight for you."

I could sense God's presence in that moment telling me to "LET GO!" Surrender is a word thrown around a lot in Christian culture but I have come to find that it is something many of us have no clue how to do. Surrender, in my opinion, is the emptying of ourselves to the point that we have nothing left to give or hold on to. It is almost of state of complete desperation sometimes. Surrender in that season of life was me crying out to God with tears flowing constantly, everyday for 3 weeks. It was the moments of saying I can't hold on tight to this anymore and literally giving up. That is the moment this devotional was referring to. "JESUS, HELP ME!" moment. It was hard to utter those words because I thought I had the ability to fix everything....but I didn't. I felt in those days, the battle becoming not mine. Literally. Every morning I woke up knowing God was working...something I had not felt in a long time.

I have had a lot of conversations lately with dear friends and Young Life girls about this very topic...surrender. They spill their hearts to me about what they are feeling anxious about or where in their life they don't feel like God is at work. I know exactly what they are feeling, yet I also know what they are not doing....surrendering. It's like God is moving forward in all of these area's of their lives, area's that they have cried out to God about for years, area's where they feel healing will never come, area's where they feel God has placed a vision in their hearts and they long to see it come to fruition....all of these area's God is surpassing their expectations and victory and freedom have happened, yet their lens is on foggy. Because they are so consumed with what they are pleading to God for, they are missing out on what he has already done in the other places of their life. They are missing out on the very proof that HE IS SURE to come to our rescue and give his kids GREAT gifts.

Our lens is on our present suffering. If we would only surrender and move the lens to what he has already done, we would see victory in that area. It's like a kid wanting a chocolate bar but not realizing he is in a candy store and there is a ton of candy all around him. God is at work on our behalf but he wants us to let go of whatever is making our knuckles turn white, so that he can move in that area.

Maybe that area is God bringing you a wife or husband. Maybe that area is the vision you feel he has given you for your future career but you are stuck at a coffee shop working. Maybe that area is wanting to be healed from your past. The list continues....

But, have you surrendered it? I am not talking about saying "I surrender this" but I am talking about literally getting on your knee's and emptying yourself. I know from the past months and really the entire life I have lived that I have filled with requests to God, that it is really hard to hear God or see him work with you have ear plugs in and a blind-fold on.

I am telling you friends, he is GOOD. He works on our behalf constantly. I have had a REALLY crappy week, yet I have seen the evidence of him being at work on my behalf without any contribution from me. He wants to bless you, but you got to give him all your cares and concerns, anxious thoughts and past mistakes, and empty them at his feet.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31

What a promise we have! I am thankful to know we serve a God who LOVE us enough to put up with our ridiculous doubting and bratty ways. Sometimes I wonder how much God is laughing at how oblivious I can be to what he has ALREADY done.

Just know, YOU are not alone and I am right there with you. It's a process...but I am learning that surrender is oh so sweet to our precious Lord!