Modeling Kingdom Discipleship
Today’s Focus: Religious Church Perspective of the Great Commission
Scripture: Matthew 28:18-20
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
It is my sincere prayer that we really grasp this and start filtering this problem out of the church and the Body of Christ. The doctrines of men and the doctrine of Christ are two seperate and opposite things. Paul told the sons at Philippi the let this mind that is in Christ Jesus also be in you. Hence we as the sons of God should be operating in one mindset and that is Christ. Any other mindset is a enemy of God. Now let's look at how the Great Commission is being misinterpreted and leading to ineffective results that do not produce mature sons but disciples of religion and denominations.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus tells the disciples to baptize people and then teach them to observe everything that He has commanded. What tends to happen in this process is after baptism we take the person and teach them the doctrines of our church and what we have grown up with. By teaching them this, the knowledge they receive is percieved to them as becoming true disciples of Christ. The current process presents itself in the manner of inviting people to come into your church and your environment and they will teach you the traditionss of the scriptures that those who are already "members" have embraced. So in actuality what are we making them disciples of? We are making them disciples to the denominational traditions and interpretations of scripture. This is why it is so hard when the Lord calls you out or shows you something that go against the denomination or tradition to tell it without getting extreme backlash. It is because the truth threatens the tradition and no one really wants to admit that they have been doing something wrong for fear of looking bad in the people's eyes. But at what expense do we keep this pride? At the expense of the maturation of the sons of God.
Now do not get me wrong, people are well intentioned but if we are truly disciples of Christ then we should be able to accept correction and repent no matter how long we have been doing it. Many denominations have disciplines, rules or a book of guidelines that they have to maintain order. Nothing is wrong if it does not contradict or mis-interpret the word of God. Funny, i can remember my wife telling me a story of how she would ask questions of why we do certain things in the church. Now she would genuwinely ask why because she wanted to know and the adults would try to shun her and try to just say this is the way we just do it. Now that did not sit well with her because as she grew up she believed and learned that we should always understand what we are doing and why we do it to make sure that we are doing that thing in it's proper context. But people who question things such as traditions are usually frowned upon and shuned as "rebels or radicals". Jesus was considered that very thing to the religious institution and the very teachings of Christ upset the order and religious ways of the Pharisees.
In the next message we will look at what a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is? We will look at the Commission and see what the Lord said and what He expected because He is the source and we are to follow Him, not tradition.
Love and Grace from the Father,
Calvin Calhoun, Jr.
