Path to Discipleship

So, you're serious about becoming a follower!

That’s great! There is so much out there to choose from that it can be overwhelming to know where to start. We’ll share a few ideas that will help you get a solid foundation.

But first, let me ask you if you ever accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. If you want to know more about the most important decision you will ever make in life, read this.

Also check other links like Online Resources; Books, Devotionals, Journals and Bibles and Go Deeper in the Word pages.

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The mature follower of Christ sees things the human eye can’t see and hears things the most acute ear can’t hear. And they have thoughts they didn’t originate on their own. That’s because God’s indwelling Spirit is helping them to think God’s thoughts….But that means we have to be close enough to hear God speaking to us. Such intimacy doesn’t just happen. It’s not an afterthought. It must be your number one priority and the consuming passion of your life.

God's Word For Today 3/14/07

First On Your Path to Discipleship
THE BIBLE

The Bible isn't a step. It's a journey!

Read it. Ponder it. Study it. Mark it up. Take notes. Speak it. Carry it around. Rustle its pages. Listen electronically. It’s our foremost authority. TIP: Don’t use a regular highlighter. You don’t want wetness or bleed-through. Try the Accu-Gel Bible Highlighter Study Kit or the Bible Dry Highlighter. Also watch which pens you use. Test in an inconspicuous place first. Get started!

12 Steps On Your Path to Discipleship

Step 1: Called to Basic Training

12-part Bible Study

From students and scholars to parents, kids, rock stars and professional athletes, people all over the world are doing The Purple Book. Why? Because they’re looking for a foundation that no storm in life will prevail against and a heart that’s shaped and guided by the knowledge of God’s Word.

The Purple Book is a twelve-part Bible study designed to help new believers and and longtime followers of Jesus stand firm and grow strong in the Christian life. Take the challenge to build the foundation of your life on the Word of God. Do the Purple Book.

“I love The Purple Book. It continually helps reinforce the only foundation worth building upon – a biblical one.” – Peter Furler, Newsboys…”The Purple Book has been instrumental in my growth as a believer…an effective tool in helping me build the life that God has intended for me.” -Mark Brunell, Washington Redskins

Step 2: Called to Inward Maturity

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

EH Spirituality is a strategy for discipleship that deeply changes lives. This course addresses the reality that emotional maturity and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. It equips people to develop a personal relationship with Jesus by incorporating stillness, silence and Scripture as daily life rhythms. Move through 8 life-changing sessions:

The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality
Know Yourself That You May Know God
Going Back in Order to Go Forward
Journey Through the Wall
Enlarge Your Soul Through Grief and Loss
Discover the Rhythms of the Daily Office & Sabbath
Grow Into an Emotionally Healthy Adult
Go the Next Step to Develop a “Rule of Life”

Step 3: Called to Outward Maturity

Emotionally Healthy Relationships

If you liked Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, you will like EH Relationships. This teaching equips people with 8 practical skills to love others well as mature followers of Jesus. It offers new language, new tools, and new strategies to break through relational roadblocks. The EH Relationships Course includes powerful skills:

Check Your Community Temperature Reading
Stop Mind Reading and Clarify Expectations
Genogram Your Family
Explore The Iceberg
Listen Incarnationally
Climb the Ladder to Integrity
Fight Cleanly
Develop a “Rule of Life” to Implement

Step 4: Called to Know Who You Are

Spirit, Soul and Body

In Andrew Wommack’s Spirit, Soul and Body, you will learn how to release the life that is already in your spirit into your body and emotions. You will learn that you are a spirit being who has a soul and lives in a body. The real you is your spiritual person. And it’s in the spirit that you’ve been totally changed and made just like Jesus. There isn’t an old sin nature left in you.

Most Christians have been taught to believe that after salvation, they are still the same at their core, and they live the rest of their lives trying to restrain this old nature. Instead, what happens is that your sin nature leaves behind a body and a soul (mind, emotions and will). These still function as programmed until you reprogram them to come into line with the Scripture.

Step 5: Called to Serve

Using Your Gifts

YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL. There is no one else who brings your combination of gifts, personality and background to the Lord. And you are offering your gifts to the Lord, not just to the pastor or church.

Ask the Lord to help you understand what gifts he has given you and how to use them. To assist you in this process, complete Characteristics of Spiritual Gifts.

You may feel unworthy, but even the bad things in your life can serve a purpose. You may feel old and tired or washed up, but we find Simeon and Anna serving in the temple as aged people. And you’re not too young either. We find Samuel serving Eli the priest as a lad. Too sinful? You can see those chains fall off. Too timid? The Lord can make you come alive and free.

Step 6: Called to a Spirit-Led Life

Moving in the Spirit

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is available to every believer as a distinct experience apart from salvation. Being led by the Holy Spirit in our daily life is essential to a dynamic, growing, fruitful Christian life.

One of the premiere authorities on the Holy Spirit is Evangelist Tim Enloe. His material is available at his website. You can also order from Books, Devotionals, Journals and Bibles here on our website.

For a clear understanding about what the baptism in the Holy Spirit is and how to receive it, listen to Tim’s message, Understanding and Receiving Spirit Baptism. You will find this message to be extremely helpful as you seek the Lord!

Step 7: Called to Battle

Victory Over the Enemy

In the highly-rated book Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson, you will learn how to take authority over the powers of darkness that attack you daily. You will learn how to:

Realize the power of your identity in Christ
Free yourself from the burdens of your past
Stand against the spiritual forces of this world
Win the battle for your mind
Become the spiritual person you want to be
Discover the truth about God’s view of you

In Living Free – Breaking the Cycle of Defeat by James Robison and Robert Morris, you will discover how to live in freedom, fullness and fruitfulness. James Robison opens his heart and reveals his personal journey to true freedom in Christ. Robert Morris opens Scriptures to reveal hidden truths regarding the plans and purposes of God. Living Free will lead you into a new walk with the Lord. Live as you were meant to be in Christ….FREE. Listen to highlights.

Step 8: Called to Financial Health

Get Your Finances in Order

Two outstanding resources for handling and turning around your finances are Dave Ramsey’s teachings and Crown Financial.

Crown Financial founded by Larry Burkett has changed over 50 million lives, helping people find financial freedom, thrive in their career and live a purposeful life.

Dave Ramsey is a well-known financial expert who teaches biblical money principles. Know Yourself, Know Your Money – Discover WHY you handle money the way you do, and WHAT to do about it! co-authored with Rachel Cruze sounds like an eye-opener.

Check out Dave’s website offering a variety of resources to assist you in your financial goals.

Also, you can listen to the Dave Ramsey Show. Listen to a clip from one of Ramsey’s broadcasts below. Caution: He is blunt!

Step 9: Called to a Radical Life

Tired of Comfortable Christianity? Try This.

What is Jesus worth to you? It’s easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily…

But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple–then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard.

Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment–a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Listen to David share his heart about this book. And see the Radical website.

Step 10: Called to a Disciplined Life

Change Your Habits

The private world can be divided into five sectors. The first deals with what makes us function as we do – our motivation. Are we driven people, propelled by the winds of our times, pressed to conform or compete? Or are we called people, the recipients of the…beckoning of Christ when He promises to make us into something?

Another sector of our private world centers on what we do with the limited amount of time we have in this life. How we allocate time for the purposes of personal growth and service…is key….The third sector is intellectual: What are we doing with our minds…?

The fourth sector is our private world…is that of the spirit….This place of the spirit is what I call the garden of our private world. Finally…rest…a Sabbath peace…so significant that I believe it should be recognized as a uniquely essential source of inner organization.

-from Gordon MacDonald’s Ordering Your Private World.

Listen to Gordon talk about the inner life.

Step 11: Called to a Shared Life

Hospitality, and Not Just For Women

In Open Heart Open Home, author Karen Burton Mains says, “If our hospitality is to minister, to impart to each who crosses our threshold something of the presence of Christ – if it is to transcend the human and deal in the supernatural – there must be…a learning, a tutoring at the hand of the Holy Spirit.

“Memories of my family home linger in the child part of my mind – comfortable clutter, the dining room table a collection center for books and mail and jackets, the rooms decorated with children’s toys. Visitors never seemed offended, but visibly relaxed in the face of all this informality. Ties were loosened, jackets removed, shoes discarded, and feet propped up…

“Each of us has a home – be it a small room, a modest apartment, or a mansion – in which we can practice hospitality.” Men are just as important as women in this sharing! Abraham is just one example of the common practice of hospitality in the Bible. If God is calling you to the ministry of hospitality, take the first step!

Step 12: Called to Go

Evangelism & Discipleship

Jesus says in Mark 1:17, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” His disciples were not chosen from an elite Jewish rabbi university. Though it can be helpful to be trained, you can start sharing your testimony and the gospel immediately. Your passion for lost souls is your most important asset!

For soul-winning, Evangelism Explosion is clear and comprehensive. The Romans Road is another great tool, as well as The Way of the Master and also Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ). Lifestyle, friendship, and conversational evangelism are natural approaches that work for many. For discipling someone, your passion for their growth is the key ingredient. For methods and tools to do this, the Real-Life Discipleship Training Manual is great. We may use others as well.

Stay tuned for small groups in both areas, but don’t wait for them to be offered. Win and train someone NOW! And get involved in ministries that reach others.

And above all on your Path to Discipleship
Put on LOVE

Your First, Middle and Last Step!

Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts–it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis Chan describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything. Be sure to take the Crazy Love step. Watch an intro here.

Path to Discipleship

So, you're serious about becoming a follower!