Studying these phases have helped me understand why I am the way I am and why I struggle with pursuing many spiritual disciplines.  Read on to see if you can trace your ‘roots’ to some of these examples in Scripture!

Phase 1 is the “Spiritual Disciplines” phase.

In this phase, we can see a marked difference between Jews and Gentiles.  Jewish boys at a very early age were sent to a synagogue where they studied under a Rabbi for years.  This gave them a solid foundation in the following essential qualities we must develop in our own lives:

1. Memorization of OT Scripture
2. Scripture meditation
3. Prayer
4. Fasting

When these Jewish boys came to know Jesus, they had already developed and had history in scripture and many of these disciplines.

If you contrast this with us Gentiles….well, we are a little different.  When the Apostle Paul was commissioned in his ministry to the Gentiles, he found no such discipline in their lives.  Not one of them had memorized scripture or had any history of prayer and fasting.  Imagine training up pastors with this background!  If you are like me, I can certainly trace my difficulties in these disciplines back to my roots!

Phase 2 is the “Come and See” or “Follow Me” phase.

This phase is ultimately where salvation occurs

During this time, many of the apostles/disciples followed Jesus on a sporadic basis.  It’s in this phase where we learn more of who Jesus is; what are His requirements for following Him?  What are the benefits of being adopted in to His family?

The requirements are the most difficult simple tasks we can ever undertake.  I am attempting to pursue some of the following with all the strength my weak self can muster.  Though I get off regularly, I constantly re-align my heart to focus on these things1

1. The 1st Commandment (and thus the 2nd Commandment).  We can’t separate these 2 but the 1st comes in sequence.
2. The Sermon on the Mount.
3. The Great Commission (being a witness AND making disciples).

I appreciate that Jesus allows us to ‘test’ things out.  He gives life to the fullest…and the journey is difficult but very worth it!

Phase 3 is the “Come and be with Me” phase

At this point in time in His earthly ministry, Jesus chooses 12 disciples (he had about 70 or so).  Jesus begins to deal with them in greater detail regarding the Kingdom of God and changing their worldview from a Jewish nationalistic perspective to a Kingdom perspective.

A.B. Bruce writes in his book, The Training of the Twelve, “At the time of their call they (all 12 disciples) were exceedingly ignorant, narrow-minded, superstitious, full of Jewish prejudices, misconceptions, and animosities.  They had much to learn and unlearn of what was bad as well as much to learn of what was good, and they were slow to learn and unlearn.  Old beliefts already in possesion of their minds made the communication of new religious ideas a difficult task.”

I certainly see a lot of those characteristics in my own life!

Phase 4 is the “Remain in Me” or “Abide in Me” phase

This is a short phase that lasted from the Passover Feast to the Resurrection.  Jesus prepares them for trials and the wildernes.  John chapters 13-18:4 gives a good picture of this time.  It includes the high priestly prayer of John 17 where Jesus prays for strength and that they “would love Me (Jesus) in the same quality You (the Father) love Me.”

Phase 5 is the “Marching Order” phase

This is the 40 day phase between His Resurrection and Ascension.  Imagine the fire you would receive upon seeing a Man resurrected from the dead!

It is in this phase that Jesus gives them the Great Commission.  This includes the 2-fold commandment to a) Be His witness, and b) Make disciples of all nations.

We receive power to do this from the Holy Spirit

There you have them – the 5 Discipling Phases of Jesus.  Let me know your thoughts and questions!

Faith + Repentance = Salvation

Mark 1:15

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (ESV)

Without these 2 working together, salvation is not guaranteed.

Faith in Christ – His work on the Cross and in His resurrection – is paramount to a new believer’s conversion.  However, it is also crucial that the repentance of sin follows faith in Christ to complete the process.  We must do as Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount and ‘mourn’ over our sin which has caused separation from the Lord.

Matthew 5:4

⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Our comfort comes from knowing Christ has taken our place; our Father in Heaven has adopted us in to His family and we are clean.

If someone were to ask you to share your testimony – to help them understand how you met Christ – you must be able to think back and recognize when these took place.  It is far too easy to grow up within the church, to become very familiar with the message of salvation, and to rationalize it in our minds when in fact we have not yet crossed the lines.

This is why many Christians feel frustrated in their walk with the Lord.  They think they are saved; but, in reality they have not received the gift of salvation as outlined in Scripture.

You are not a disciple of your church or denomination.  You become a disciple of Christ.  Therefore, you must adhere to His kind guidelines and means to salvation.

1 Peter 1:10-11

¹⁰ Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. ¹¹For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Meteorologists on Tuesday morning recorded the lowest ever October temperature in Germany, as the mercury dipped to a chilly -24.3 degrees Celsius in Bavaria’s Berchtesgaden national park.

The bitter cold was measured at the Funtensee, a notoriously frosty lake high in the Bavarian Alps.

Might as well highlight it as global cooling doesn’t get near as much attention as global warming

I’ll just say this – if that was CNN’s attempt at being ‘fair and balanced’ – it ended there at the beginning.  Carol Costello ends the debate by calling all conservative talk radio listeners lemmings.  That’s right, tack on another name to us conservatives.  Pretty much the rest of the segment was focused how much ‘power’ the conservative talk show hosts had – in a negative context, of course.  It seems to come back to power quite often with the left…and, most often it deals with power they don’t have or power they want to have.

Can you say envious?

Well, in this segment, at least they left out the psychiatrist.

The dialogue centered on this question: “Can talk radio hosts influence you’re vote?” Which, in liberal speak, means do they have power?

Yes, and no.

If they are able to influence one’s vote, they are still unable to swing elections (unlike the cult of personality created by CNN and other main-stream media networks for BHO).  Talk radio is at least responsible for holding the line with investigative journalism; other networks have traded their roles in keeping politicians honest to keeping politicians covered – aka propaganda.

Of course, CNN is always curious as to why people tune in to conservative radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh.  The answer always contains key words: Anger, entertainment,and narrow-mindedness

You will not believe this quote from Carol Costello.  Video at Hot Air:

“There’s a perception out there that Americans will listen to any one person and do exactly what they say but I would like to think that Americans aren’t lemmings and that at some point they make up their own mind.”

Oh. my. gosh.  What a model for us you are, CNN.  You mean, you want us to give up our freedoms and go along skipping to the tune of a 1.4 trillion-dollar-deficit, the emasculation of the US, and a destruction of the Constitution by people that you support in the government?  Is that what you call making up our own minds?

I don’t think so, CNN.  I don’t think so.  And, neither do millions of other Americans.

[But] new Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying finds Palin losing handily in face-to-face march-ups with her two likeliest challengers for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

I’m not sure who they’ve been contacting, but that isn’t who I’d be voting for.  Huckabee and Palin would be a hard choice for me; I’d vote for both of them before Romney.

It seems as though others might feel the same way:

It’s noteworthy that Huckabee’s gains since July are matched almost precisely by Palin’s decline. That suggests a large pool of voters are committed to choosing between two candidates routinely dismissed as unacceptable in the eyes of Republicans in Washington, DC. At the moment, 47% prefer either Huckabee or Palin…

I would probably do the same thing – if I felt that Palin wasn’t able to win the GOP candidacy, I would almost certainly then cast my vote for Huckabee, and vice versa.

I am hoping that Sarah’s supporters are a bit more silent than the other two’s.  Or, as Hot Air notes:

While we’re talking Sarahcuda, Conservatives 4 Palin has a smart post about how she’s using new media to get her message out unfiltered by the media prism.

I don’t know, I might have to set up my own poll on this one

Barack Hussein Obama?  Al Sharpton?  Matt Lauer?

How about Global Warming?  Bingo!

I wanted to highlight a new documentary that is being released called Not Evil, Just Wrong about the dangers of the Global Warming hysteria.  I appreciate the title as it highlights what I have to remind myself constantly: This isn’t against people, it’s against an ideology or worldview.

Liberals aren’t evil; they’re merely misguided in a couple areas.

The film holds much promise – see website for more details, release date, etc.  I myself look forward to viewing it.

]]> http://rightrevelation.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/cartoons/feed/ 0 rightrevelation Overthinker McCrystal http://rightrevelation.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/more-and-more-westerners-enlist-in-al-queda/ http://rightrevelation.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/more-and-more-westerners-enlist-in-al-queda/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:29:08 +0000 rightrevelation http://rightrevelation.wordpress.com/?p=590 ]]> When I read this headline, I thought to myself, “Geez, there has to be 1,000′s of people defecting to terrorism.”

I was wrong.

This article makes it sound like the newest trend is to become a terrorist; it’s as if they want to support the enemy by giving them more and more attention.  You won’t believe how many people this involves.

1,000,000,000?  No.

100,000?  Not quite.

10,000? Getting closer.

1,000?  Warmer….

100?  Almost there….

Wait for it……30!  Since January 1, 2009, 30 people have gone from Germany to Afghanistan to train with the Taliban.  Here’s a quote from the Article:

U.S. and European counter-terrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits — including Americans — are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary training camps. The flow of recruits has continued unabated, officials said, in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.

I by no means want to minimize the significance of this reality; there are nut jobs who want to become a terrorist, who travel to Afghanistan to train, and then return home after being brain-washed by the enemy.

That is a scary picture.

However, the media once again sides with the enemy in order to manipulate others to get what they want: defeat.

German security services have been on high alert since last month, when groups affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda issued several videos warning that an attack on German targets was imminent if the government did not bring home its forces from Afghanistan.

I want the troops home, too.  I’m just tired of the media berating our troops over there, deflating morale and propagandizing pacifism while instilling fear in everyone else.

And, all this over 30 people.  They’ll use whatever story they can to twist it into “We better leave or we’ll get attacked.”

As if we won’t get attacked anyway.  For those of you on the left, please google certain events that took place on 9.11.01

Notice we haven’t been attacked since then?  We would be wise to think about why that is.

Saddam Hussein is dead, Bin Laden is hiding in a hole, and we’ve had the enemy on their heels ever since.

You wouldn’t know that by watching CNN, though.

Here is big salute to the men and women in the US military who fight to keep this country safe.  We are indebted to you.  I apologize for the lack of respect our media shows you.

It turns out Russia is ready to fire nuclear weapons pre-emptively – meaning, they will nuke someone who appears aggressive or is a threat to them before they can even attack.

Doesn’t that just give you the warm-fuzzies?

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons.

The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

Here’s my question: How do they define the term, “Aggressors.”

If Russia labels a nation an aggressor as quickly as the Left in America labels someone a racist, we could be in for some serious fireworks.

As if this isn’t scary enough, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, left-open the door to even bomb local targets within or near Russia:

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war…In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

As the author puts it, “If I were in Georgia — or in any other country Russia considers part of its sphere of influence — that formulation would make me pretty anxious.”

No, kidding.

Bringing it back home, hasn’t Barack Hussein Obama held dialogues with Russia in an attempt to have them reduce their nuclear weapons?  I don’t think this was on his agenda.  He’s even having trouble coaxing Russia into Iranian sanctions (yet again).

It’s not too late to re-think that Nobel Peace Prize

A new study has shown that in 2003 there were approximately 41,600,000 abortions performed worldwide.  The article is attempting to spin this as good news; this figure is down from the 45.5 million performed in 1995.

If roughly 40 million babies are killed each year, then so far this decade (2000-2009), 400,000,000 have been murdered worldwide.  That’s only this decade.  I really don’t want to add up those performed in the US since 1973.  Worldwide, the article estimates that 20% of pregnancies end in abortion.

Furthermore, it appears that babies aren’t the only victims.  Each year, 70,000 mothers are killed as a result of unsafe abortions.  Yes, it seems that mothers suffer along with the children.

This is horrible news and in my opinion falls along the lines of child sacrifices performed by cult societies in the Old Testament.  Severe judgment was brought upon some nations as a result of these atrocities.

Abortion must be ended in America.  It is an atrocious, immoral crime.