The August 2013 Reading Notes can be found as a single document at https://sites.google.com/site/dlkachikis/posts
Feel free to download this file and print a hard copy. Laura and I are really enjoying doing this.
I read an article by Bill Hull that really struck me. Hull has been involved in discipleship for decades and written best sellers on the subject. His programs have been used by hundreds of churches in the U.S. and internationally. After all his books and after decades in discipleship he felt it had all been a failure. There was no culture of disciples who were following Christ in the harvest making disciples who made disciples. His conviction was that for many the cost of discipleship was more than they wanted to pay and that believers needed to be evangelized with the message of discipleship.
It is interesting to me that the Great Commission, that is, the charge for us to reach a lost world, says we are to make disciples. Couple that with Jesus’ words, spoken twice to his disciples, that the harvest was plentiful but the laborers were few, you have the importance of making disciples to the reaching of the lost. It only takes one generation to forget the importance of making disciples. That generation will produce a generation that has forgotten how to follow the Lord in the harvest and has no clue how to make disciples or reach out to the lost.
Having said all of that, even in churches that have forgotten how to follow or reach out, it is fun to find people who suddenly come alive with the message of discipleship. I have some people who I could point you to who were not reading through their Bibles a year ago and now give a very excited and heartfelt testimony to reading a One Year Bible and the Reading Notes. This is how discipleship is fueled, reading the Word of God and drawing closer to Christ. His light is our light and it sets us on fire. The making of disciples is the beginning of reaching the harvest. Our Lord wants passionate followers who love Him and hear and obey His Word. What we are doing is the foundation of growing as disciples and reading His Word daily is the way discipleship is proven and how it spreads.
Don’t give up. Look for those who respond to the Word. It will get your heart going to watch people catch fire.
In Christ,
Dan
Feel free to download this file and print a hard copy. Laura and I are really enjoying doing this.
I read an article by Bill Hull that really struck me. Hull has been involved in discipleship for decades and written best sellers on the subject. His programs have been used by hundreds of churches in the U.S. and internationally. After all his books and after decades in discipleship he felt it had all been a failure. There was no culture of disciples who were following Christ in the harvest making disciples who made disciples. His conviction was that for many the cost of discipleship was more than they wanted to pay and that believers needed to be evangelized with the message of discipleship.
It is interesting to me that the Great Commission, that is, the charge for us to reach a lost world, says we are to make disciples. Couple that with Jesus’ words, spoken twice to his disciples, that the harvest was plentiful but the laborers were few, you have the importance of making disciples to the reaching of the lost. It only takes one generation to forget the importance of making disciples. That generation will produce a generation that has forgotten how to follow the Lord in the harvest and has no clue how to make disciples or reach out to the lost.
Having said all of that, even in churches that have forgotten how to follow or reach out, it is fun to find people who suddenly come alive with the message of discipleship. I have some people who I could point you to who were not reading through their Bibles a year ago and now give a very excited and heartfelt testimony to reading a One Year Bible and the Reading Notes. This is how discipleship is fueled, reading the Word of God and drawing closer to Christ. His light is our light and it sets us on fire. The making of disciples is the beginning of reaching the harvest. Our Lord wants passionate followers who love Him and hear and obey His Word. What we are doing is the foundation of growing as disciples and reading His Word daily is the way discipleship is proven and how it spreads.
Don’t give up. Look for those who respond to the Word. It will get your heart going to watch people catch fire.
In Christ,
Dan
