Pass on everything you’ve learned!

Congratulations! You have done a marvellous job! You have been patient and kept going through all the pages in: Finding Your Place

Unfortunately, you cannot allow yourself to take a break and just enjoy the results, because you are now at the starting point. This is where it all begins!! Now you are to take on new responsibility, and to pass on what you have learned to other people. To make them His disciples!

Disciples learn to obey quickly when God speaks

Peter the fisherman learned to be quick to obey the instructions Jesus gave to him when He asked him to throw in his net again, no matter how stupid he might have thought it was. The results were totally astonishing! He learned a lesson for the rest of his life! Luke.5:4-9.

Jesus said: To act according to the Word of God and the teachings of Jesus is to believe! Faith is not something which stays in our head, but an attitude in our heart which leads to action. Have you learned to believe God when there is no outward sign to confirm or strengthen your faith? Luke18:1-8; Mark.11:12-25

Where is your security? Are you willing to trust in God’s Grace and Love when everything is against you? Did you put your hope in a faithful God, full of loving-kindness, or do you seek comfort and security in tangible assets? Matt.6:19-34.

Are you willing to be led by the Spirit and make the changes He wants you to? To adjust when He prompts you? Or are you slow to hear, and to accept the changes the Spirit prompts you to make?

Pass on over everything you’ve learned

Now we are at the heart, at the very centre of being a disciple. The teaching has a purpose! Jesus put it simply this way by saying:

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Mark 1:17)

Jesus called the disciples to Him in order that He could teach them to bring people into the Kingdom of God! We have to stay focussed on this and never lose sight of it.

When the risen Lord gave gifts to the congregation, He gave us people with different ministries: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. These ministries have only one purpose and that is to strengthen and bring his followers to maturity in service for Him in order that the body of Christ can be built up and the whole body can enter into oneness, so that it may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. (2.Tim.2:2)

This is the kind of life we are called to participate in -to receive, to learn and to teach others! Every single Christian is made to live this way. It means living in a continuous flow of giving and receiving, full of blessing. It is blessed to receive training in the things that belong to the Kingdom of God, but it is even more blessed to pass them on to other people.

It is worth bearing in mind that only a disciple is capable of making others His disciples. It is only the one who is being taught who can teach others and who has the right to do so. It is only when we are faithful in what we’ve learned and pass it on to faithful men and women that we share in the blessings of being His disciples.

The first Christians kept faithfully to the teaching of the apostles. In the same way we keep to the course, are faithful to the teaching of the apostles, and pass on what we have learned. We do not live according to our own ideas, our own thoughts or our own way of doing things. No, we are under an obligation to remain faithful to the teaching of the apostles. We are obliged to accept their interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. We are bearers of their revelation – which has also become our revelation - of the purpose, the plan and the will of God.

It is a great commission we have received. We have become part of an apostolic treasure and a prophetic vision. Through the Word of God and His Holy Spirit, we have received a new and everlasting life and a new understanding of the plan, will and purpose of God. We have become prisoners of a divine vision and it is therefore of utmost importance that we pass on what we have become a part of.

In this book you will find the basic things included in the vision God gave us through His Word, the Bible. When we are faithful and hold on to what we have learned and pass it on to others, we will receive new insight and renewed joy in what we have learned. When we teach other people and observe how the Word of God changes them, sets them free and makes them secure in God, we will be filled with joy. When we have tasted the blessing in giving to others what we have received from God, we have only one desire, and that is to do it over and over again. The word of God teaches us this by saying:

How blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free. (Isaiah 32:20)

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. (Eccl.11:1)

Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. (Eccl.11:6)

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. (Ps.126:5-6)

Exercise:

Did God remind you of someone you should give a helping hand on their way with Jesus?

What is the most important thing you want to pass on to the people you are to give guidance?

Continue to memorise these Bible verses:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20)