God's favorite number….
It caused me to pause when the above statement was made recently by a colleague in ministry. Why is God's favorite number zero?
According to my friend it is because of what the Scripture says in 2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
God's desire is for no one to miss out on the wonderful freedom that comes through repentance and leads to eternal life. This is his desire - ZERO people missing out on heaven.
His only plan, to make sure no person perishes but rather repents and enters into a special relationship with him, is to send you and me to tell everyone about Jesus and his love.
Fortunately, God knew we would not be able to pull this off on our own. Even the disciples who had lived, worked and walked with Jesus were not fully equipped for the job. They were told to wait for the Holy Spirit to come.
That same Spirit is available to us and He goes with us when we attempt to fulfill the mandate to go and make disciples. For too long we have made the church the centre of the Christian faith. However, in increasing numbers younger people are abandoning church all together. The key to reaching them is to go where they are and engage them in conversation and an invitation to explore matters of faith. The Great Commission is a mandate to go and not a mandate to huddle and expect the unrepentant to come to us. Gratefully, the Holy Spirit does draw some people to seek the Savior by leaving their comfort zone and going to church; but the greater command to go remains the preferred method God has chosen .
Unfortunately, most Jesus followers don't know how to go or what to do to make disciples. Fortunately, at F4L we have the tools for the job. The genius of the material, designed by our founders Dick and Susan Driedger, is that every follower of Jesus can lead a person on a journey from non believer to trained disciple without any special training. This can happen in homes, coffee shops or places of employment or wherever there is a person or persons who have a desire to go with a facilitator (Jesus follower) on a journey through the materials we have available.
The mandate is to go. We have the promise that the Holy Spirit will go with us if we ask him. And at F4L we have the resources available so every Jesus follower can be a disciple maker who makes other disciples. This may sound a bit more like a commercial instead of a devotional but the reality is, we have one of the ways that God is using, around the world, to draw people to himself.
I am here to help if the Lord prompts you to become more engaged in making disciples. I welcome any conversation even if it is an exploratory one while you are discerning God's will for you.