Hey People of God,
Hope you’re all doing well. We’ve been super-glad about the change in the weather. I definitely appreciate the winter and its beauty, but as you might guess street ministry in the winter is very difficult, cold work and we lose a lot of street ministers until it gets nice out. Anyway…
I’ve been thinking about the cost of making disciples lately and how the enemy would attack us as believers to prevent us from doing so. (Making disciples seems to be extremely important to Jesus so it should be important to us.) As I thought about it, my mind went to conversations I’ve had about people who reportedly had sold their soul to the devil. This led me to think about the word “soul” and scripturally that makes this conversation a little scary. Let me tell you why.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul tells the church in Thessalonica that he is praying that their entire spirit, soul, and body be preserved until the day of the Lord’s coming. The word “soul” there is the Greek word psuche. We get our English words psyche and psychology from it and psuche can be translated as mind, will, emotions, or thoughts. That’s where this gets scary. If someone’s soul is their mind, will, and emotions think about how easy it would be for satan to get in and affect this area. Added to this is what I’ve seen about witchcraft and satanic activity.
We have had the chance to talk with people who have been delivered from witchcraft and wiccan and the one thing they all say is that the foundation of all of this activity is selfishness. They are encouraged to think about promoting their self interests and the spells they learn are all about benefiting themselves. I read some of a satanic bible once to see if it was really evil and the first thing it said was, “Love only those who deserve it.” Do you see how scary this is? How is this any different from the way many Christians act? I know a lot of believers (myself included) that often only love themselves and think, for days on end, about how to better themselves and their own life situations. Now let’s go back to our conversation on discipleship.
The one thing we’ve noticed in making disciples in the street, the church or elsewhere is it takes time. The one thing we’ve noticed about getting people to help make disciples is, they don’t want to give up their free time. It is a costly affair to make disciples. Especially in the beginning, you have to be willing to spend enormous amounts of time with people who don’t have any other Christian friends. Their desire to be more Christ-like hinges on being able to pattern themselves after believers, and if you’re truly in the position of needing discipleship you don’t have any Christian friends. Which means some believer would have to be willing to give up free time to spend with someone they don’t know allowing them to see what it looks like to live a life for Christ in the world. This by definition cannot happen on Sunday. Now, if you have believers who are mostly concerned with how to find more time to relax, and spending their free time and money on things they desire, how do we differ from those learning witchcraft? How are we going to carry out the great commission with a group of Christ-followers who meditate night and day on how to make their own lives more comfortable and have actually given their psuche over to something that looks very little like Christianity?
I don’t mean to be down but I do mean to take a look at my own life and see if Jesus would be able to count on me to help him come into his inheritance in the saints (Ephesians 1) and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28).
Thinking carefully on this,
Love
N8
