The Time Of Discipleship
September 1st, 2009 by Victor
Watch this amazing video featuring Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan from 1930:
Anne Sullivan must have been quite a woman of love, compassion & patience. How long must it have taken to teach and work with Helen Keller, a woman born blind and deaf?! Yet Anne Sullivan did not see someone disposable, but rather someone who had value and was worth spending her time and life with to teach and care for. Amazing!
Watching this video again brought to mind some things I have been thinking about recently. Discipleship takes time. Have you ever been working with someone to bring them along in their faith? This isn’t a one-time momentary thing is it? If you are the mature believer in a relationship with someone coming along in their walk with the Lord you have to be ready to committ your time and love to this person. Teaching someone to observe all the Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:19-20) doesn’t just happen on Sundays either.
I have recently needed to re-asses my own life’s schedule so that I am not too busy (even with Church related things) to give my time and love to those who need discipling. We have to be willing to empart our own lives – it doesn’t have to be hard – just spending time with a brother and doing things you might have been doing already can serve as a good opportunity to teach, encourage, correct, etc. Don’t let the busy-ness of this age stop us from giving the time that is needed to help our new brothers and sisters get to the point where they can help train the next new Christian.
Our job does not end once the gospel has been preached, heard and believed. In fact, that’s when our job is just getting started. Don’t leave discipleship and teaching to your pastor alone – many hands make light work and will help more give glory to God!
This reminded me of several verses.
Acts 17:27
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Isaiah 59:10
We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night: we are in desolate places as dead men.
Didn’t Helen Keller write a book? It seems to me that she did.
Those were two amazing women.