A Spirit-Empowered Disciple
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must move beyond knowing and understanding God’s command to love and move toward more experiences of that love. As we embrace more of God’s love for us, we will be empowered to ultimately express love as we live on mission for Him. This is all about relationships – fresh experiences of Christ’s love for us and then a focus on the priority of loving others.
A Spirit-empowered disciple:
Loves the Lord
Lives the Word
Loves People
Lives on Mission
Our world needs more people living as Spirit-empowered disciples who are making disciples, who in turn, make disciples. To be those disciples we must focus on the powerful simplicity of: Receiving God’s love for us and then loving him as our first-priority. Living God’s Word because there is power and possibility in experiencing the scriptures. Loving people by developing a lifestyle of giving first and taking the initiative to love in Grace-community. Living God’s mission, sharing Jesus’ hope and love to others. Effective discipleship will flow out of our closest and most connected relationships. Maximum impact for God’s Kingdom will first require a true commitment to loving like Jesus in all our closest relationships. Great Commission-living is empowered by Great Commandment love, the experience of our loving relationship with Jesus is the center point for love experienced in all other relationships.
Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT) Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. ’This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Jesus had a knack for keeping things simple and easy to understand. So, when it came to how we please God, He didn’t have a long, complicated explanation. It was something truly simple, so simple that anyone could understand it, from the most educated to the illiterate, from the oldest to the youngest, from the richest to the poorest, in any culture, anywhere, at any time in history. Everyone can grasp that what Jesus said was the way to fulfill the requirements of God for our lives. When it comes to the world understanding God, Jesus makes that clear and simple: The world would believe in the love of God because His people would truly love one another.