Free Gas for Your Think Tank — Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement

Daily writing prompt

If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be?

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Jesus wants you
To let Him do
Things inside you.
Let Him change you
Deep in your heart.

Continually allow Jesus to:
* Comfort you,
* Heal you,
* Teach you,
* Train you,
* Convict you of sin,
* Transform you,
* Lead you,
* Discipline you,
* Strengthen you,
* Empower you,
* Work through you. and
* Keep your focus on Him.

Churches can help people focus on the living Jesus by changing how they conduct the Sunday morning service. The typical church makes the worship leader the center of attention for the first half of the service. In the second half, the pastor takes center stage.

That trains members of the congregation to be little more than passive spectators. It teaches them to focus on what a leader is saying and doing up front instead of what Jesus is saying and doing in their heart. It sends them home unaware of the active presence of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Thus, many Christians live their daily life as if Jesus is a billion miles away.

Is there a better way to disciple Christians? Yes. To disciple people isn’t about just filling them up with religious head knowledge. It’s about connecting them heart-to-heart with the risen Jesus and with one another. That’s what a church service should be doing–facilitating heart connections–not just programming songs and presenting a one-man sermon.

Making disciples involves training people to help one another do everything that Jesus taught His first disciples to do. (Matthew 28:20) It’s about teaching Christians to love God “with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind;” (Matthew 22:37) to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:38) to “love one another:” (John 13:34-35) and to “love your enemies.” (Luke 6:27) If I don’t have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2),

How can Christians be trained to actively love, sacrificially and wholeheartedly, like the Bible says, when every week we are being trained to merely sing what a worship leader tells us to and to sit silently while we passively listen to a pastor’s sermon? To get beyond low-level love, we who are Christians need to be trained to humbly open our heart to Jesus, to one another, to neighbors, to strangers, and even to enemies.

We need to be trained to be inwardly led by the Holy Spirit’s promptings. (Romans 8:14) We need to be taught to continually allow Jesus to freely work in and through us day and night.

Since that kind of training is hard to find, Christians easily settle for routine Sunday morning religion. Break out of the same-ole-same-ole. Gather with one or more other Christians at least once a week, listen to God the Holy Spirit together, and let Him train you to obey His voice.