Disciples and Disciple-making (15)
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 1 John 4.12
Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37.4
When is God’s love “perfected in us”? Surely as we bask in it, and then as we reciprocate. We love God because He first loved us. The more we love and delight in Him, the more He will give Himself and His love to us, that we may delight even more.
Only the love of God can fit us as true spiritual friends with others. For if we do not love God, we will not have the love we need to bear with, support, encourage, and edify someone else. Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1167) put it succinctly in Spiritual Friendship: “One must first lay a solid foundation for spiritual friendship upon which its principles may be based. If this is done, the person who is ascending the higher reaches of spiritual love by a direct path ought not to neglect this foundation nor go beyond it, but instead exercise the greatest caution. The foundation of which I speak is the love of God; by this foundation we should measure all those things which either love or affection prompts, all those things which either the heart secretly suggests or some friend openly urges.”
Are we increasing in love for God? Do we desire thus to increase? Because only the love of God gives us the strength to deny ourselves in preference to others, the orientation to sort out proper from improper affections, and the wisdom to know what is the proper path for love to tread at any time.
Soul friends should above all encourage one another in love for God, for by so doing they strengthen the bonds of friendship which bind them to one another. Love for God is the foundation of all healthy discipleship, and it provides the power for making disciples of others.
Teaching and learning as disciples
We can become more consistent and effective at making disciples. Mike McQueen explains how. Listen in to my conversation with Mike by clicking the link or the audio bar at the top of each issue of Pastor to Pastor.
Resources for Shepherds
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins. But most of the time, the world just looks pretty, well, mundane. But there’s more of beauty in mundane things than we might think, and more of God’s glory in all the work we’ve been given to do. Andrew Wyeth’s “Wash House” can help us train our attention for discerning beauty in even the most routine, everyday things. Read more about “The Mystery of the Mundane” by clicking here.
How have we come to be a nation of people who are self-inflated, chaotic and confused, disgusted with our country, and totally unsure about what to do next? James Block says that it’s because our affections have gone astray. Or rather, they’ve been hijacked when we weren’t looking. Read a summary of his important article and find a link to The Hedgehog Review where you can read it for yourself by clicking here.
Our ReVision series on “How to Pray for Your Church” is currently looking at how we can pray more effectively for our fellow church members. We begin by praying that we may all grow in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Looking for a summer study challenge? Our in-depth study of Ecclesiastes is now available as a free download by clicking here. Ecclesiastes speaks pointedly to the situation of our world and shows us the importance of making sure that, in all we do, we’re living “under the heavens” and not just “under the sun.”
From the Celtic Revival
The Kingdom of God is first of all righteousness. If we’re not seeking and growing in righteousness, we’re not fulfilling the requirements of our citizenship. Celtic Christians understood this, as we explained in one of last week’s issues of Crosfigell. May we all hunger for righteousness like this anonymous Irish monk:
Give and grant and impart to me,
Thy holy grace, and Thy Holy Spirit,
to protect me and preserve me from all my sins
present and future,
and to kindle in me all righteousness,
and to establish me in that righteousness
to my life’s end…
– Litany of Jesus II, Irish, 15th century[1]
You can sign up to receive Crosfigell in your email box every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 am (Eastern US). Just use the subscription button to update your subscriptions (scroll to the bottom of the home page).
It can be difficult to keep a church on course with the Lord, the sails of our vessel filled and trimmed with the Wind of God only. So many strange and threatening winds seek to capture the sails of our church and blow us off course. We may not be aware of these until we’ve already gone so far astray that it seems futile to tack back into the stream of the Spirit. Our book, Winds of Doctrine, can help you discern the spirits that are seeking to draw you and your church away from the Lord’s plan. Download a free copy in PDF by clicking here, and share it with others in your church.
T. M. Moore
If you have found this issue of Pastor to Pastor helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Other columns of interest this week: Read Moore (from the book, Revived!); from Crosfigell, “He Knows What He’s Doing”, on the work of the Holy Spirit; and “The Bitter and Sweet Word” from our daily Scriptorium series, “Jesus throughout the Scriptures.” And new in our bookstore, Let God Be True and Enjoying God, both free to download and share.
Support for Pastor to Pastor comes from our faithful and generous God, who moves our readers to share financially in our work. If this article was helpful, please give Him thanks and praise.
And please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe with your prayers and gifts. You can contribute online, via PayPal or Anedot, or by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1] Plummer, Litanies, p. 45.
