Essential Practices for Personally Making Disciples (Part I) by Paulo Lopes
Paulo Lopes
August 7, 2017
You and I are called to be personally engaged in making disciples of Jesus Christ.
You and I are called to be personally engaged in making disciples of Jesus Christ.
It’s not a time to micromanage, but it is a time to glance at the big picture and identify potential trouble spots and retrain the growth to expand in the direction you’re aiming for.
If we are to hear the voice of God, and thus have an understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in real time, we must surround ourselves with the language and voice of God.
The book is called ”The Book of Everyday Prayer,” and it’s for everyone who, like me, needs more than what comes off the top of their head.
As we rehearse our vision of faith over and over, keeping it ever before us, it strengthens and sustains us, remaining intact as a source of strength during times of crisis and resistance.
Recovery is characterized by relapse. I wish someone had told me this a long time ago, before I lost patience with people who desperately need my patience. Relapse is what happens when people give up a powerfully magnetic addiction only to find themselves at some point giving into the temptation to try it again. It happens. Relapse doesn’t mean a
There is so much that we can learn about God, our life, our calling, by looking at the life of Jesus Christ. He can teach us how to love, how to be faithful, how to be holy, how to see to live out the good news of God’s love each day. And today we see something very significant, and very important to Jesus’ life and his
Through all this, Bono remains rock ‘n’ roll’s most effective spiritual provocateur. He sees every stage as a pulpit and every coliseum as a cathedral.
“Move ON!” a little girl voice shouted from the porch. She’d been watching me weed then went inside. During that time, I’d moved down the flowerbed but doubled back, pulling stray weeds I’d missed the first time in the tangle of morning glory vines. When she came out, she saw me bending at roughly the same spot as when she’d
The church seems to be obsessed with numbers. We account for professions of faith, baptisms, membership and worship attendance, and these statistics for church health point to a crisis in the present and increasingly dismal view of the future. We seem to count everything. Even the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, made sure that every Methodist could be counted. However, it is my conviction
For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 provides the thesis of
When we are teachable, we come with simple, trusting hearts, ready to gain insight from another.
As clergy, we preach, we teach, we pray, we visit the sick, and we know the word, but how does this apply to ourselves?
Thank God for the blessings of your day. Ask God for guidance as you live the rest of your day. And leave this quiet time in peace knowing you never leave the Shepherd’s presence.
In the book of John, beginning at chapter 13, there is an interesting shift in how Jesus deals with the people he calls “friend.” First, he does this radical thing where he gets down on his knees and washes their feet. He wants to serve them and model for them what humility in the context of friendship looks like. With
But the Word comes nevertheless, not in an earthquake or fire or rushing wind, but in this man, Jesus the Christ. And he offers himself to us; eat from me, drink from me.
There’s an overwhelming amount of beauty and awe in the world – from midday eclipses to bounding monkeys in jungles to the perfect curl of newborn baby toes. At some point, though, we all encounter suffering. Sometimes it appears as physical pain; sometimes it’s in the form of prolonged waiting; sometimes it’s mental or emotional distress. Sometimes suffering occurs through our
There is something mystical about the way people will drive hours to serve perfect strangers a hot meal, muck out their flooded home, or repair a hole in the roof.
He is at work in you and me, gifting, equipping, empowering, and shaping us to work alongside him in accomplishing the work he is doing.
We sing and play instruments, we paint and sketch, we enact and perform, and all of these are triumphant expressions of the truth of our faith.
Get articles delivered directly to your inbox as soon as they come out.