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My journey with Jesus has been one that has taken me from barrenness to fruitfulness as a disciple of Christ. (John 15). I recall hearing in a Christian education session that a characteristic of a believer is that he or she desires to be a “disciple-maker”.
The presentation caused me to reflect that although I enjoyed encouraging other believers in their walk with Christ, I was not experiencing a deep desire or enthusiasm to make disciples of Jesus. It was not that I was avoiding engagement with unbelievers, but rather that I was not actively desiring to be a “disciple-maker”. Making disciples of Jesus felt more like a ‘duty’ – that is, “I was a believer in Jesus so I must evangelize”.
The truth of God’s Word in Genesis 1:28 and Matthew 28:19 hit me with conviction: through Christ, I had been fully restored in God’s image and mandated to be fruitful and multiply and given the authority to ‘make disciples of all nations, therefore I should enthusiastically desire to do God’s will in its entirety!
So why was I ‘barren’?
Why hadn’t I ‘reproduced’ after my own kind, that is, in leading an unbeliever to Jesus?
Why wasn’t I actively disciple-ing anyone relationally, as Jesus had done?
Why was I fearing building friendships with non-believers?
Something must be broken – less-than-whole – in me, I thought.
All these questions disturbed me because I wanted to eagerly desire what God desired from me. My mind needed to be renewed in this area.
After being a Christian for almost 25 years, I only recently started learning what it meant to walk in the power of my identity in Jesus Christ. Before this, my experience as a believer was largely limited to accessing grace for repentance's sake and then foolishly trying to ‘please God’ through performance, rather than by relying on that same grace. (Galatians 3: 2 - 4).
I was very hard on myself and also too critical of others. I did not know that I was already pleasing to God because I was in Christ. (1 Thessalonians 2:4). Needless to say, my walk with Christ was not characterized by power, love, and soundness of thinking; instead, it was riddled with fear of failure, perfectionism, and a lack of self-love. (2 Timothy 1: 7). The brokenness I was experiencing on the inside testified to that.
BUT GOD repeatedly spoke His word of truth to my heart through Scripture and in fellowship with other believers in Jesus Christ. I also learnt to build “stronghold-busters”, routinely renouncing deceptions that Holy Spirit revealed and declaring the truth about God and me in the situations I faced. Through fellowship meeting discussions, Scripture reading, and books from a movement called “Freedom in Christ Ministries”, God progressively broke the bondage of guilt, shame, low self-esteem, and identity confusion in my life. (Hebrews 10: 23 - 25).
I began to understand that just as I had not “behaved my way into salvation”, my behaviour could not break my relationship with Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2: 8 - 9 and 1 John 4: 8 - 10). My salvation was God’s doing – I was sealed in Him by Holy Spirit. Nothing God does can be reversed! (Ephesians 1: 12 - 14).
My awareness of my security in relationship with God in Christ deepened and I began to experience joy in my identity in Christ. (Romans 15:13). I believed myself to be significant, secure, and accepted in Christ because God’s Word said so. As a result, I was less critical of myself and more forgiving of myself and others. I started looking at all my relationships with new eyes. Because my security was now centred in Christ, I was no longer looking to my relationships for significance, acceptance, and security. I was, therefore, able to bring more love, more grace, and more soundness of thinking to my relationships at work, school, church, home, and in the various secular groups in which I participated.
I became far less judgmental of my unsaved friends. The truth encounters that I had in Christ enabled me to stay in relationships with unbelieving friends, rather than withdraw as I was accustomed to doing, for fear of being wrongly influenced. (Matthew 5: 13 - 1, Luke 5: 31 - 33, and 2 Corinthians 5: 11 - 21). This has started yielding fruit and I was blessed with seeing 2 of my unbelieving friends giving their lives to Jesus Christ at my church this year!
I now pray for unbelievers more intentionally. And I pray that God will continue to use me to bring the unsaved to Him through a relationship – Jesus-style authentic relationship!
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