Two Needs in Discipling

I would say that the two greatest problems among Christians are a lack of understanding their position in Christ and a lack of knowing God as their Father.  

They have no family image; therefore they feel cut off from other family members, members of the body of Christ, as well as feeling alienated from God. Our fellowship is made solid only as we renew our thinking about God.

God made us to enjoy Him. It is difficult to always enjoy a teacher, or a lord, or a commander in an army. God is our Father, and we are to enjoy Him forever. 

What a comfort to enjoy God like that! I can act as a child and treat Him as a father. I am free to fail, free to speak what is a concern to me, free to be myself, free from fear, free from guilt.

 God, through the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, has adopted you into His family through faith.   

- Dan DeHaan, The God you can Know. 

NO MIX OF OLD WITH NEW

Then they said to Him, "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?" And He said to them, "Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?" Luke 5:33-34

These verses show that Jesus, who is the bridegroom, entered this earth to introduce a new way of life. His thoughts about fasting were not the thoughts of the Pharisees. In Luke 5:27-32, Jesus shows that He had come to introduce a new way of relating to sinners. In Luke 6:1-11, Jesus introduces a new way to treat the Sabbath. He permitted his disciples to gather corn on the Sabbath. He healed a man on the Sabbath.

With His illustrations in Luke 5:36-39 of not using new material to patch old material and new wine with old wineskins, Jesus again teaches the same message. He is laying the groundwork for the introduction of a New Covenant. In Hebrews 8:13, the author writes about the Old Covenant, "In that He says, 'A New Covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." The Book of Hebrews is about the New Covenant.

In 2 Corinthians 3:5-6, Paul writes, "… our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." The entire third chapter of 2 Corinthians 3 contrasts the old covenant with the new.

In Luke 5:39, Jesus says, "And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.' Does this not show the hesitation of those who have lived under the Old Covenant for years to turn to the New Covenant.

We live under the New Covenant when we live out our union with Christ.

- David Kuykendall

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NOT CONFORMED BUT TRANSFORMED

by David Kuykendall

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. " Romans 12:2


In Romans 12:1 Paul writes, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

In Romans 6:13, Paul tells his readers to "make available to God their members as instruments of righteousness." When we understand that with the word "members" Paul is talking about our bodies, we see that Romans 12:1 is the same as Romans 6:13. The 6:13 command is preceded by four other commands. It could very well be that Paul has in mind those other commands also in his statement in 12:1

By beginning Romans 12:2 with "and," the passage indicates that there is a relationship between making our bodies available to God and not being conformed to the world but being transformed.

Believers who talk like people of the world often talk, go where they often go, do what they often do, laugh about what they often laugh about are being conformed to the world. Like the unsaved the believer is walking in the flesh.

In Romans 8.5 Paul writes, "When we walk in the flesh, our minds are on the things of the flesh. When we walk in the Spirit our minds are on the things of the Spirit."

We walk in the Spirit when we are filled with the Spirit by living out our oneness with Christ. When believers walk in the Spirit, their minds are on the things of the Spirit and they are continually being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. And Jesus is increasingly seen in them.

Copyright © 2000-2005 David Kuykendall Ministries. Used with permission
www.livingbygrace.org.