The Kingdom Economy: These Last Days (4)
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” Matthew 28.19
Priorities and practices
Any economy has priorities and practices which sustain and advance it. Those priorities and practices, taken together, describe the mission or purpose of that economy. The mission of our secular and materialistic economy is to maximize material wellbeing for all who participate in it. The primary disciplines that move that economy are getting and spending.
As vulgar as that can sound, it’s not entirely bad. God provides abundant goodness for people everywhere, and His Word endorses such secular activity as business, money, and acquiring wealth. But if this is our only mission in life—to improve ourselves materially—we will not realize our promise as human beings. We need an economy above this one, an economy that pervades, shapes, and limits all other activity, an economy driven by an entirely different mission.
This is what the Kingdom economy provides.
In the Kingdom economy, where the overarching objective in these last days is to enable the people of the world to know the glory of God and the God of all glory, all our activities must be directed to seeking and advancing the rule of Jesus on earth as it is in heaven. But to do that, we must be a certain kind of people. We must be people like Jesus. We must be His disciples. Basic to the proper working of the Kingdom economy is that participants in it should be disciples of Jesus Christ. Thus, the mission of the Kingdom is, in the first instance, to make disciples of all participants.
Every believer, all who participate in the divine economy, has a calling from the Lord within which to fulfill our overall calling to be disciples and make disciples. The mission of the Kingdom economy of the Lord is not that people might flourish in material prosperity, but that they might flourish in the work of being and making disciples.
Every believer’s calling
All believers—all disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ—are called to this Great Commission of making disciples. This duty and calling should inform everything we do, in every area of our lives, whether we are engaged with other Christians or are interacting with our unbelieving neighbors and associates.
Every believer is a disciple of Jesus Christ and must be encouraged and strengthened in their calling to the Kingdom and glory of God. And every nonbeliever, at the very least, deserves our every effort to show them the life of discipleship and to explain the way into it. Every follower of Christ engages with believers and nonbelievers; thus we must learn what making disciples requires of us with all the people to whom God sends us each day.
In our calling to make disciples, we are never off duty, and we never lack for opportunities to contribute something to someone, believer or nonbeliver. As we do, this furthers the working of the divine economy. Each of us has a personal sphere of influence in which Jesus intends to fill all things with Himself through our faithful and obedient lives (2 Cor. 10.13-18; Eph. 1.15-23; 4.8). Here is where we carry out the Kingdom mission of making disciples.
Two questions
But we don’t want to take anything for granted in this calling. Since making disciples is what we must be about in stewarding the Kingdom economy, we need to ask two important questions.
First, what is a disciple? And second, what’s involved in “making” disciples? Unless we understand these matters of our Kingdom mission in these last days, we will have a difficult time fulfilling our stewardship.
A disciple, in the simplest of terms, is one who has made the Kingdom turn, who follows Jesus and learns from Him. Every disciple of Jesus is called to deny himself, take up his own unique calling to serve, and be busy about the task of ministering the grace and truth of God to others.
As followers of Christ, we must first learn from Him (Matt. 11.28-30). We learn from Jesus by listening to Him in His Word, communing with Him in prayer, and gathering with other disciples to study and discuss His calling on our lives and to worship and enjoy Him together.
In addition to learning about Jesus, every disciple must live as He did (Eph. 4.17-24), showing the love of God to one and all, going out of our way to serve others, and pursuing holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12,14; 2 Cor. 7.1).
Every disciple of Jesus will also be involved in encouraging others to consider Him. With our fellow Christians we will worship, pray, study, share, and take up works of service. With our unbelieving friends we will show the love of Jesus and share the stories of what Jesus has done for us, explaining the teaching of Scripture concerning His saving and redeeming work on our behalf.
A disciple of Jesus—a follower of the Lord—will thus evidence an abiding passion for His concerns, a determination to live after the pattern of His life, and a desire to serve others with His grace and truth.
Discipleship is a full-time calling. If we think that being a Christian means only that we have confessed our sins and are going to heaven when we die, then we grossly misunderstand the Lord’s calling for all who would follow Him. As we labor together at being disciples of Jesus Christ, we will find it the great joy and the noblest calling of our lives to work at helping others follow Him as well.
Making disciples involves being together in the Lord, sharing what we’re learning, encouraging and edifying one another, bearing one another’s burdens, and making the most of every opportunity to demonstrate and teach what it means to follow Jesus.
For reflection
1. How would you explain to a nonbelieving friend or colleague what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
2. What is involved in the work of “making disciples”? Whose job is this, anyway?
3. “Discipleship is a full-time calling.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
Next steps—Demonstration: How would you describe the state of your own discipleship at this time? How about your work of disciple-making? Spend some time in prayer meditating on these questions before the Lord.
T. M. Moore
Give thanks
If you have found this meditation 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).
It’s in all the small stuff we do each day that the Kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Our book, Small Stuff, can help you in your daily work of seeking the Kingdom and righteousness of God. Order your copy in book form by clicking here or as a free PDF by clicking here.
Other columns of interest this week: This week in our Read Moore we begin selections from our book, Understanding the Times. This book will be a valuable companion to our study of “The Kingdom Economy.” In our Crosfigell column we’re following Brendan, a 6th century Irish saint, as he pursues the Kingdom economy in his extraordinary adventures. Our daily Scriptoriumcolumn takes up the Gospel of John this week in our continuing series, “Jesus throughout the Scriptures.”
Thank you.
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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
