5 years ago I went on my first summer project. and each day of the week we have a certain type of training. On Sundays we have life training, which talks about the practical areas of life the gospel affects such as: Finances, Family, Free time and Anxiety. Now, during my time in college, I went to 3 projects and each year heard a talk about moving home in August and how you can have an impact on your family. Each year of hearing this talk I pretty much ignored what was said about evangelism because some students don’t come from families of Christ followers, I do. I always have. My whole family goes and enjoys church, My mom works in a church and my step dad serves in the church. My little sister gets notebooks for her birthday to do her bible studies in and my little brother leads worship in the youth band. I never really considered needing to be intentional when moving home in August because my family already knows Jesus.
As believers we are called to make disciples of all nations. How many of you think about going to the world and telling everyone when hearing this? I do. I think about my co-workers who proclaim to be agnostic or those who think church is a bunch of rules, I think about the somali men sitting in the Starbucks downtown Minneapolis and the classmates I have that profess to be Christians but live far from the reality of the gospel. I think about the kids I met in palestine that didn’t know the thing I called church, I think about the muslims who do honor killings or the FARC revolutionaries in colombia who are training children to kill, steal and destroy. I had forgotten that in the verse I mentioned above it says, make disciples, not just converts. Making disciples is a process of sanctification and in that process there becomes a point in which the individual can pass on what they have learned. Am I positive that my family can all articulate the gospel? Yeah. Am I positive that they, not to be just like me (in gifts or talents) but do they know what I know? Do they have the ability to share the gospel the way I do? Well…., we are different. We don’t have to do it the same way. Yes, that is very true but if they don’t posses something that I have, then I guess I have the ability to share things I know. My family isn’t perfect, obviously… no one’s is. They aren’t perfect which means they still need to be sanctified. We are called to build up the body. We are called to encourage and exhort one another.
1 Thes 5:11
Heb 10:23-25
1 Pet 4:8-10
Eph 4:29
Gal 6:2
Eccl 4:9-12
Prov 27:17
This list goes on, you can find more here
Last night right before dinner I got in an argument about something really stupid with my dad and he was so gracious to me. He called me out for having an attitude and then calmly restated something he had already told me 3 times in the last few weeks. All the sudden it dawned on me how imperfect I am not just with my coworkers and with my friends but in my heart and mind (in which the effect it has on my family never occurred to me before.) especially at home. I am still a sinner at home, and maybe even more so because I don’t have a guard up. My mission at home, just as it as at work and with my friends and at church is to know God and make him known. I need sanctification at home and so do my family members. I have new reasons to be intentional where I live!
Praise the Lord for revealing himself to me in my sin and through my dad’s graciousness to me. God’s kindness surely lead me to repentance. I owe my dad an apology and a thank you for his kindness.
Dear Samm, 