We’re now in week seven of our journey through a book called The Ways of The Alongsider: Growing Disciples Life2Life by Bill Mowry. The idea of an Alongsider might be an uncommon thought to some of us, but Bill does a great job with the details at the outset of the book. Then as we moved deeper into our understanding of what an Alongsider was we hit four topics of great importance to discipleship: A Way of Life, Intentionality, A Life of Prayer, Relationships, and last week we talked about Depth of Relationships.
This week we will get our footing on what really matters. Think of what would happen if all of the vast number of books on discipleship were to go away. Would you know what to do? Would you have a clue what a disciple was?
The seventh portion of the workbook on the Alongsider deals with the Bible. If Jesus calls us to make disciples, wouldn’t it be a wise idea to watch how he did it? After all, Jesus modeled this whole discipleship idea for us in various occasions. But what did he do? How did he do it?
Just look throughout the pages of the bible, especially the Gospels, to see how important the Word of God was to his everyday life. When Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, he didn’t even speak to him. Rather he just quotes the bible.
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. You see the word is supposed to be a regular part of the life of a disciple.
This begs the question – where is the word present in your daily life? How prevalent are the words of Jesus to your Monday thru Saturday routine? In our fast-paced American culture, we’ve created excuses for our limited time in the word. We are too busy. We don’t understand so we just don’t try. We’re too tired. And the list goes on. But what would happen if you just took a simple step forward. Not everyone can do a personal quiet time of an hour every morning. If that’s not you then don’t jump right into it at that deep of a level.
When you first learned to swim, you likely didn’t jump off the high dive expecting to do the breast stroke perfectly once you surfaced in the deep end of the pool. For me that’s what quiet time sounds like. I’m not the quiet solitude kind of bible reader. It just doesn’t sink in for me. But I do have a 40 minute drive to work each day. Perhaps you could use your drive time to listen to the bible in audio format. There are plenty of apps for that.
Another option is to just take five minutes out of your day – just five! In that five minutes you can read a couple of verses. Maybe you underline them or write them out on a post-it note to put on your mirror. In that five minutes you’ll also have time for a quick prayer. It’s that simple.
The more time we spend in the word, the more apt we’ll be to use it in those everyday moments when we just don’t know what to do. If you don’t know where to start reading, there are tons of reading programs out there. But there’s also another pretty simple way. If you have one of those bibles with the red letters that represent Jesus’ words, just open it to the book that has the most red in it. This was the method a friend of mine took recently. Now he has an appetite for the Word that keeps him coming back for more. If you’re curious, the book with the most red is the gospel of John. What better way to learn the way of Jesus, than to listen to what he has to say.
This week the challenge is to pick up a bible, or open that bible app, and read. It can be John if you’d like. But it can be any of the words of the bible. Just take it in. Let it sink in to your life. Take it in small bites so you don’t choke on it. Then you’ll be able to see how it’s helping you grow as a mature disciple of Jesus.
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