Discipleship: Good Soil

What can one life do? Jesus said that some soils (those hearts who receive the word) will produce 30, 60, or 100 fold (Mark 4:-20). What I’ve seen in Sy is the beginning of a life lived for others. Just the other day he was sharing why he has been a leader with Intervarsity and what has drawn him. He basically said that becoming a fisher of men has hooked his heart. Here are some of the lives who have been touched by this guy’s life.

Sy became a Christian upon attending an IV conference. After coming back home from the conference he started to read the Bible with his mom. She was in a tough place where her husband left her and the family for another woman and a different life. After being invited to church, she received Jesus in her life. She wanted her husband back and went to bring him home after that. She didn’t do it by force and couldn’t but rather she went several hours away to where he had been living and met with him and asked him to come home. He was moved by the love in her for him and he returned home. Later during the year, Sy led another student to faith and invited a friend from the dance community to a conference and she became a follower of Jesus. She had no Spiritual background. This guys doesn’t just stop there as he is using his passion for dance to spread deep truths to people and has been recording and performing biblically based and choreographed dances.

What I love most is not the numbers but his pure hunger to see people get touched by Jesus, just as he has. I see it in his eyes when he shares about inviting people to meet Jesus. There is a fire growing and blessed by the living God to reach the world.

Here is his video (Sy is the one who takes off the jacket):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7EOGpSAIoA&feature=player_detailpage

Discipleship: An Unknown Land

It’s always easier knowing where the next stop in one’ s life will take them. Isn’t it?

Evan attending our world mission conference last December and God seemed to be speaking to him in several ways regarding the nations. He had several moments with people there that we both recognized when he came home as divine appointments. He came back and mentioned to me that he made a commitment to pray over a nation who didn’t have the bible written in their own language (he has still been sowing into this nation through prayer to my knowledge). Through the course of his time at the conference and also interacting with Bible translaters there he started to look in to a Bible Translation Summer Program. It has streteched him to go to a different nation, to believe God for funding, and to press in to a sign that God is leading him there without really knowing why.

 

You might say, so what I know people who have taken risks for Jesus and I even have? I hope this is so because isn’t it like God to tell people to leave their “country, their father’s household and go to a land [He] will show you” (Genesis 12:1). God leads us on adventures and it is not easy to follow but this young man has said yes. I see God cultivating in this young man a heart for the nations. Is this the beginning of an onramp to the nations for this young man? It seems so to me. 

Discipleship: A Small Seed is Becoming a Great Tree

“I don’t feel anything.” Logan said at our first large group of the year. He had just accepted Jesus in to his heart. He seemed to be looking for some great sign from heaven or sensation. I didn’t know what was going on either and was hoping for a Baptism from the Holy Spirit. Why didn’t the Holy Spirit give him that radical sensation that I had once experienced? I thought maybe he didn’t quite understand the message of grace, and so I asked if he realized his need for a Savior. He didn’t say much except that he wanted to experience God’s love. All I could tell him was to walk by faith and believe that what he did that night mattered. That there was indeed a radical transaction and that God would meet him.

In the next months, God would continue to meet Logan and make him a pillar in our student population of believers. It’s been particularly great seeing God interact with Logan through prayer and how his faith has increased and is now encountering the Living God. In the past, I would imagine this guy would describe God as an unlikely possibility and not at all close if He existed at all. Now it is apparent, God has met him. Here is one brief testimony about where Logan is at today:

Every year we take students to Catalina to study the bible for their spring break. They actually spend around 7 hours a day studying the bible. Isn’t that crazy in of itself? Well, that is not the crazy part of this story. Logan told me that at the beginning of his trip, he was frustrated and had no faith. He admitted he was in a bad place at the beginning until some timely advice helped him to stay engaged and start to try and figure out what God wanted to do that week, in him and in his community. At some point he started to believe and said that his faith turned from that small mustard seed into the great tree discussed in Mark 4:30-32. He proceeded to say that during the week he prayed for people. I learned he didn’t just pray for people but he prayed for people to get healed from their injuries and illness. When he was telling me this story I was tripping out. He told me 4 people got healed!X#$#% when he prayed for them.

Who would’ve ever thought this guy would be praying for people to physically get healed. I sure didn’t.

All I can say is that God has met Logan. He has met him in spite of his doubts and through prayer. God has been meeting him and the once agnostic is believing. He is not just believing but he is living for Jesus and going more and more in with Him seeing His name lifted up and His Kingdom coming.