[stextbox id=”custom”]This article is from “The Will Of God” series.[/stextbox]
Have you ever wonder what God wants you to do with your life? I have recently been doing a study on the will of God, as revealed to us in Scripture, and below is just a taste of what I’ve gleaned.
Jesus taught that His plan for living out the Christian Life would be to use clay pots like you and me to make others into radically new creatures. You have been specifically handpicked by the God of this universe to call individuals to commit to Jesus as Master and Lord of their souls. What a mind-blowing privilege!
What do you think about that? Amazing right? You are fresh, moldable clay in the hands of the master Potter. He is sculpting you according to His own purpose, power, and plan. He is forming you into a passionate, supernatural disciple-making machine.
Just be sure that you are plugged into the divine power outlet and that your switch is turned on.
Jesus told His disciples, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19; italics mine). We do the following—Christ does the making. How wonderfully liberating it is to know that even though our role in this world is to make others into disciples of Jesus Christ, the Lord really accomplishes the making part for us. It is His divine work, after all. The Lord drives the nail of discipleship by wielding the hammer of our obedience. Through your passionate love for the souls of men, women and children, God will make others around you into disciples of Jesus Christ.
A fisherman may study the waters and bait his hook, but the Lord alone supplies the catch. It has always been this way. There is nothing new under the sun. God is and continues to remain sovereign over all things. It is the same today as it was both on and following the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. The early church faithfully went about the business of Great Commission Discipleship—ministering daily in the temple and from house to house—but “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47; italics mine).
God has always been in the business of building His Church on the shoulders of our obedient love. It is His master plan, after all.
I don’t know about you but I am sure glad I was not an apostle. As far as we know from Scripture and early church tradition, all were murdered except for the apostle John. And he was sentenced to imprisonment as a wrinkled old man! No, being a legitimate apostle of Jesus Christ was tough, dangerous, and often thankless work.
For instance, consider the apostle Paul who admitted this about—not his strength—but his radical weakness:
“Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness” (2 Corinthians 11:24-30).
Yet that was the kind of passionate disciple-maker God was looking for to do the miraculous. The weaker the man, the more the power of God was on display. Once during an early missionary journey—and immediately after being stoned and left for dead—Paul got up, marched back into that crowd of hardened hearts and “preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples” (Acts 14:21; italics mine).
Wow! When God finds a weak but available hammer, He reaches for it time and time again.
Paul understood all about the costs and benefits of having a radical, deliberate faith. He was both a courageous evangelist and a compassionate pastor. Upon making those “many disciples” in Acts 14:21, he then “returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening and souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed” (Acts 14:21-23). The apostle Paul was singularly focused on his mission of making new disciples and edifying the saved disciples. And the Lord was pleased to swing that hammer.
What about you? What are you prepared to become (do, give up, relocate to, etc.) so that God can use you to build His Church? Are you in love with Jesus Christ, or have you been busy entertaining the passing pleasures of sin for a season? Is anything in this world more appealing to you than being used by God to manifest His infinite glory? I sure hope not. When I get to heaven and am standing in the midst of God’s awesome presence, the last thing I ever want to think is, How could I have ever thought that ________ was more satisfying than worshipping God?
The apostle Paul’s appointment as an ambassador of Jesus Christ to make disciples of all the nations was not, altogether, unlike your own. Paul made disciples in much the same way you are to; by teaching the Scriptures regularly and sharing your personal testimony to anyone who crosses your path. He was “not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Although Paul was a unique hammer of uncommon craftsmanship, he was mere flesh and blood like the rest of us.
When Paul recounted his conversion experience in the presence of King Agrippa, he was careful to mention his purpose in God’s ultimate work of salvation, reciting the words of his Lord who said, “But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:16-18; italics mine).
As the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul was used as a mighty instrument in fulfilling the mission of Great Commission Discipleship; a mission that consisted of being radically used by God to open the blind eyes of those who would receive forgiveness of sins. And you are also a hammer of a similar craftsmanship. You have been commissioned to passionately worship God while making others into disciples of Jesus Christ.
In case you did not know, it is the only reason you are still breathing right now. It is God’s will for your life today.