I Know Funny and …………

This morning as I cruised around the SCV delivering my papers I was thinking about what to blog about and I came to this conclusion, that without Suzi I am not a funny person. We are very much like Lucy and Ricky or Burns and Allen. So when I am without my Lucy I figured I would blog about the things I think of while I’m on my route. I know, I know, you are thinking “please no more Louis Armstrong”. Even though I cannot promise that I can tell you it will be all over the board. It may be religious, it may be whimsical or on rare occasions it may be funny. This will also help you to pray that something funny happens on Sundays when Suzi is with me. So here goes this new format of “The Paperboy Diaries”.

So this morning I was actually meditating on Matthew 28:19-20,"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." This passage seems to be used quite a bit when we send missionaries to the mission field, but I rarely hear it used in regards to the local body and the mission field that we have here at home. I just got to thinking about the word “disciple” and its meaning, “one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another”. I was just thinking about how most of Christians think that when they evangelize those they come into contact with, they think that the object is to get them to accept Christ as their Savior. Yes that is one of the aspects of evangelization, but if we are to equip them to, like the definition says, spread the doctrines (Gospel message) that we espouse then we must train them. That’s the part I think we often forget. It’s almost like we give them the Gospel message, the Lord in His Divine Grace saves them and then we feel like the work is done. NOT! The work has just begun! Look at verse 20 “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”. We must teach them those things that we know to be true. If we are to be true missionaries to the world then we must help those around us in their Christian walk. We must help them get to a good church. We must help them to understand the implications of the Gospel message. We must come along side of them and disciple them. This is what the early church did. In today’s society of easy believism and the doctrine of tolerance we let people flounder in their faith, because we are afraid to infringe on “their” truth. We need to remember that there is only one truth and that is what we must teach those we bring to faith if Christ. That’s why verse 20 says “all that I commanded you”. We must, not if we feel like it, train those who are youthful in their faith the importance of daily meditation in the Word and the importance of hearing the Word taught. So, this morning I challenged myself to not only evangelize those around me, but to educate them and to disciple them too. Wow! What a glorious morning in the Lord! And to think all of that was going on in my head at 3:00am.