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Weekly Action - 2 April 2024 - Discipleship Review

 

Discipleship review

Last weekend we celebrated Easter, when we remember Jesus’ death and resurrection, to pay the price for our sins and open up a way for us to have an amazing wonderful relationship with God.  This week, as we continue to celebrate new life and the fact that Jesus has risen, is a great time to pause and do a quick spiritual health check on where we are at in our walk of discipleship with God.

As Christians our life and walk is all about discipleship, following Jesus in our daily lives and being slowly transformed to become more and more like him.  As the letter to the Hebrews says, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebs 12: 1 – 2).  In the Arise Manifesto (Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world), we see how the Bible teaches us that the mission of the church, and every individual Christians, is to gradually transform the world around us through evangelism, discipleship, fighting social justice, eliminating poverty and restoring the environment.

This week, will you take the opportunity to pause and do a quick spiritual health check on where you are at in your discipleship walk with God?  The Bible provides us with amazingly practical habits, behaviours and guidance to help us grow ever closer to God and ever deeper in our journey of discipleship.  These might be ensuring we have a daily prayer time, attending church regularly, giving generously, helping those in need in our communities in practical ways, sharing our faith with our friends and family, or advocating on behalf of those who are suffering injustice.

In the Arise Manifesto, we have drawn these together into a summary list of specific actions in areas like prayer; obedience, calling and direction; personal attitude and integrity; evangelism; work, rest and health; family life; church life; the work of the Holy Spirit; spiritual warfare and persecution; social justice; development and the environment.  This puts these specific practical actions and behaviours, that should be a part of our lives as Christians, all in one place, and allows us to compare them against our current lifestyle to see how we are doing.  This might sound slightly overwhelming, but just try it.  It doesn’t take long.  Pray through it as you go.  You may find that on many, you are doing well already.  On some others, you may find God challenging you to take action and go further. 

 

Take Action

Practical Action

Go through the specific actions we should take as individual Christians in the boxes at the end of each section in Parts 2 and 3 of the Arise Manifesto, or look at the summaries in the Appendix, and see how you are doing on each action.

Pray

Pray through it as you go.  You will find that on many, you are doing well already.  Well done.  On some others, you may find God challenging you to take action and go further.  Ask God to show you if there are one or two specific ones he wants you to target and start taking action on in your life this week.

 

Encourage us and others by letting us know what actions you have taken – message us at info@ariseuk.org, or via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

 

Find out more

It’s great to take this action as individual Christians, but even better to come together with others to pray, discuss, worship, learn, have fun and take action together.  Contact Arise if you are interested in joining or starting a local Arise group in your church or area

Find out more in the Arise Manifesto, Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world.  It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment.  It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.

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