Join the 40 Day Prayer Challenge or text Prayer40 to 44222
Our nation and our world is in a broken state. The ultimate objective of God is to bring back Shalom. It’s a ministry of reconciliation that He accomplishes through his followers, by the Spirit that’s indwelling in all of us. It’s a necessary time to mobilize the power of Christ to cause that reconciliation to be on its way.
One of the reasons why it’s not happening, amongst many, is a lack of discipleship. What we have is a lot of Christians who have been baptized and are going to Heaven, but they really haven’t been taught to obey all that Christ had commanded us.
Matthew 28:16-20 says:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
Part of the problem where we haven’t seen Christians stepping out as a powerful force for peace and compassion and reconciliation is that we have a lot of Christians that are Heaven-bound…but they’re not Heaven warriors. They haven’t been discipled.
Let’s pray today that the Holy Spirit would stir in the hearts of mature believers to take younger believers under their wings and really help them grow in their faith. As Scripture talks about it, “moving from milk drinkers to meat eaters.”
The challenge there is to walk people through the truth of Scripture, the truth of living with the Spirit in them, to create an environment and relationship where they can wrestle out their doubts; where they can fight through the process of dying to self; of crucifying the old man and becoming a regenerated man or woman who is on fire to be a vessel for peace and love and Shalom. We’ve stepped away from the lost art of life-on-life discipleship and apprenticeship and growing Christians to make a difference. This is part of the reason why we have this situation culturally.
I think about Romans 8: 19-20, where it says the rocks and the trees are groaning, waiting for the children of light to reveal themselves; that’s us! What happens is we have a lot of Christians that are on the sideline frustrated, but not proactive. I don’t think we can cast blame on them. They haven’t been grown into full fearlessness from the freedom that the Gospel brings them. Let’s pray to God that discipleship revival would happen in our country and across the world.
Prayer
Lord, by the Spirit and through Jesus to our Father, we pray that your Spirit would stir up in the hearts of mature men and women. We pray that these believers would see a fantastic ministry opportunity in identifying a newer believer; to strengthen them; to encourage them; to walk them through the truth of Scripture and how it applies to the practical parts of their life; and how the Gospel is not just about getting to Heaven. It’s about getting them connected back to God and not just for forgiveness, but for force; for power; for good.
We pray that the Holy Spirit would put into their hearts; into their minds; through their hands and feet and that they would be people that would be excited about bringing Heaven to earth. So Lord, we petition, we pray that that people would be excited to find others to disciple; to start to mobilize your kingdom; to be a light in a dark season of our nation’s history.
Lord, we lift all of this up in your precious, mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeff Spadafora
Jeff Spadafora is a former management consultant and leadership development expert for Fortune 1000 companies. In 2005, God led him to repurpose his time, talent and treasure toward helping successful people in mid-life transition discover and engage in their second half calling. He did this as a part of the leadership team at the Halftime Institute where he was the Director of Life Purpose Curricula that was used by thousands of people. He was also Director of Global Coaching Services and trained 41 Halftime Institute-certified coaches in 6 countries.
As a result of training Halftime coaches, directly coaching 100’s of successful Christians one-on-one, and speaking and facilitating workshops globally, he wrote The Joy Model to provide a blueprint for people to live with peace, purpose, courage, character and freedom.
In 2018, on an extended sabbatical along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, the Holy Spirit guided Jeff back to the fundamentals of discipleship. To double-down on being a life-on-life disciple maker and not an organization builder. To help men break through any and all barriers preventing them to live and love like Christ. To grow in this direction with others, locally, over time.
Links
