There is certainly a lot of hardship in the world at the moment but trust me when I say that this hardship has not slowed the move of God! Over the last few months, we have had the privilege to meet many hungry people who are discovering the truth of the gospel for the first time. Two men in particular come to my mind: Both had received the New Testament a few months before we were able to meet with them, and both men had read the whole thing before our first meetings! In fact, by the time we met with one of these men, he had started to read his New Testament for the third time and was already in 1 Corinthians!
One of these men was K****. At our first meeting, we sat in a coffee shop in a city that is widely considered the most conservative Islamic city in [removed]. There, he told us he had found truth in the gospel and wanted to be baptized so he could follow in the steps of Jesus and truly worship God. It was an amazing meeting! Right there we opened the Word of God together and asked some simple questions about what the scripture teaches us and how we can obey it. The last question we asked each other was, “Who can we share this truth with?” K**** had a friend who he thought might be interested, so we encouraged him to start that conversation with him. Only a few hours after our meeting had ended, I got a message from K**** saying that he had already contacted his friend and that, not only he, but also two other friends now wanted to join the group! A once very unreached city with no Gospel access whatsoever, now is in the beginning stages of having its first church of believers meeting together!
I want you to pause here and think about this: It is easy for you to praise the Lord for what happened here but disassociate it with your life because this happened in a far away land. This man had never met a Christian before the coffee we had together. He has limited knowledge of scripture, has not yet been baptized, has never been to a church in his life. Yet when we met and opened the scriptures together, the Holy Spirit showed him that people who follow Christ help others around them to follow Christ. So, he went out and started making disciples! This man is not special, he is not super charismatic, he has zero incentive to do this other than to obey Jesus, yet he did it.
God wants you to make disciples, just like He wants K**** to. I think that most of us have bought into the idea that making disciples is too hard or in some way beyond our capabilities or callings. We have deceived ourselves into believing that we need more knowledge of scripture to do this, or some type of special calling, or years of training. But God wants His disciples to make disciples NOW! We are called by scripture to do this and the Holy Spirit wants to show us the way!
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by this, we’d love to share with you the same things we shared with K**** about taking those first steps. It’s a lot more natural than you may think! Email us and we would be happy to start you on this same journey.
Please pray for K**** and his friends, and for what we believe is the start of a church in this city! Pray that God will turn this small beginning into a movement of new believers and disciples of Jesus Christ that multiply across this nation and beyond!
