Hammer on Anvil '

I remember years ago reading The Navigator, a biography of Dawson Trotman. I read it because at the time my husband and I were involved in a two-year-long discipleship training program published by The Navigators ministry. After we completed the course, we taught it for four more years. The course grounded us in our faith more than anything else we had experienced.

If you're not familiar with Dawson Trotman, he founded The Navigators in the 1930s. After seeing the benefits of discipleship in his own life, Trotman became passionate about teaching others, inspired by 2 Timothy 2:2: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."


Converted at 20, Trotman spent 30 years pouring his life into discipling others, beginning with high school students and Sunday school classes. In 1933, Trotman and his friends expanded their ministry to sailors in the U.S. Navy. Les Spencer, one of those sailors, was transformed by discipleship -- so much so that a fellow sailor asked Spencer to share the secret of his changed life. Spencer brought the sailor to Trotman, and said, "Teach him what you taught me." Trotman's response, "You teach him!" has become a classic reminder of what discipleship is all about. Once we have been discipled, we are to disciple others. That's how multiplication works.

Spencer did teach the sailor, and soon the two men were meeting with others. Eventually 125 men on their ship were growing in Christ and actively sharing their faith. Billy Graham, then an up-and-coming evangelist, was so impressed with Trotman's method that he enlisted him to help disciple new converts who committed their lives to Christ at Graham's crusades.

Trotman wanted to challenge people to stay on task with sharing their faith, and always be in the business of discipleship. A burning question was perpetually on his lips: "Men, where is your man? Women, where is your woman? Where is the one whom you led to Christ and who is now going on with Him?"

What challenged me the most about how Trotman lived his life is that he never allowed himself sleep at night until he had told at least one person about Jesus. One night after falling into bed exhausted, he realized he had not told anyone about the Lord that day. He told God he would witness to two people the next day to make up for it, but was not able to rest. He got up and began to drive around, asking God for an opportunity to share the gospel. He picked up a commuter who was walking to his car, and proceeded to share his faith, and the man accepted Christ.

John 15:13 says there is no greater love than to lay down your own life for another. That's how Trotman lost his life at age 50. Ten people attending a Christian conference were in a speed boat, when suddenly a big wave hit. Trotman and a young girl were thrown overboard. He held her head above water until the boat circled back to them. As the girl was lifted to safety, Trotman sank beneath the water and disappeared from sight. 

I am woefully and sinfully inadequate when it comes to evangelism. I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I see others as He sees them, and am asking Him to break my heart for the lost.

Why are we so reticent to share the greatest news anyone could ever hear? Are we just so busy with our own lives that we can't be bothered about where other people might spend eternity? 

I am grateful for those who prayed me into the kingdom -- for the ones who sowed the seed, the ones who watered and cultivated. Let's be grateful enough to God that we truly want to see His kingdom come and His will to be done. Begin your day asking God for opportunities to share the love of Jesus, and then walk through the doors that He opens for you.

 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Luke 9:23


Today's Christian leaders are beginning to realize where modern churches are going wrong in their philosophies. Books abound telling us that there is a huge difference between "belief" and "following". "Life at its very best is a passionate experience, not a doctoral dissertation. The problem is not that Christianity can't be believed, but that it can't be practiced because of its lack of lived experience." The Gospel According to Starbucks, Leonard Sweet. "In teaching people what it means to be a Christian, we spend much of our time and effort bringing them to a point of belief without clearly calling them to follow. We have taken "believe" and we have written that in capital letters with bold print: BELIEVE. But everything that has to do with following has been put in small print: follow." not a fan., Kyle Idleman. I have found myself reading several other books lately that essentially address the same issue. The question that still plagues me after reading all this is, "What's missing?" We can feel the convicting power in the question "has following Jesus cost you anything?", but Christians are still struggling with getting from conviction to action.


The truth is that Jesus wants all of us, and He doesn't plan to leave us as we are. That truth scares us to death. What if He calls you to sell everything you own and go into the mission field? What if He uses your life to glorify Him by sending you a tragedy? What if your friends or family abandon you because you're "taking this Christian thing too far"? We want to follow, but we're afraid. 


Kyle Idleman tells us about many people who had what he calls the "DTR (define the relationship) talk" with Jesus. Nicodemus would have to risk losing his position and his friends to follow Christ. Matthew would forfeit his lucrative (albeit dishonorable) career as a tax collector and commit to being poor. A prostitute would risk physical punishment just to be in Jesus' presence and to show Him her love for Him. And the rich young ruler would go away devastated because Jesus could see into his heart that his money and possessions were what he was worshiping.


Many Americans embody the rich young ruler. We value our comfort, our money, our status. In reality, there's nothing wrong with wanting to provide sufficiently for our families. Jesus tells us that shouldn't be the focus of our lives. He says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26. We should love God so much that by comparison our other relationships could be described as hate. That requires total commitment to God's will, not ours.


So what is missing here? It's the acceptance of God's overwhelming love for us and the acknowledgement of His power and strength that is sufficient to care for us in any situation. Yes, following Christ will change our lives, and that is scary. But it's part of the point. Living in and with His love is worth the risk.

This weekend, I will be out of town, speaking at a Youth Retreat, on the topic of spiritual purity. One of the sub-topics that will arise is that of having the appearance of holiness and judging one another by fleshly standards. I was surfing through some old emails this week, and came across one that contained a devotion that I had written back in 2003. I love that the truth of God's word never gets old, you just grow with it. I just wanted to share this little devotional with you.

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"Spiritual Competition"

One of the most defeating diseases that can infect a body of believers is an atmosphere of spiritual competition. The Disciples of Christ showed us that one extremely poisonous tactic of Satan is to inject the unassuming disciple with the venom of spiritual pride. Christ’s disciples began to argue over which one of them would be exalted the greatest in the kingdom of God. Surely, with such a competitive spirit, there was no unity among the disciples. Each disciple was probably planning his next move, sure that he was wise enough to be heard and heeded, trying to impress everyone else with his great words and understanding.

The saddest part may have been that their wisdom would have blinded them from hearing anything of worth that any other disciple had to say. For they would have said in their hearts “I don’t need to hear what this babbler has to say, what does he have on me?” They may even begin to try to sneak a peak at the list of the great Judge who sees all, and try to build up a defense for themselves against other disciples, saying “He talks a good game, but he has many shortcomings and downfalls in the light of God. Why, he doesn’t even know what holiness is, nor does he desire it! I am not like him! I love God MUCH more than he!”

How sad it is for a group of believers to become so blinded by their own pride and haughtiness of spirit that they refuse to hear the words of another or glean from the wisdom of another. Such spirits are poor, wretched beggars, for in denying the words of their fellow disciples, they may very well neglect a word from God. And never could they have any unity with their brothers. Though they pray together, sing together, and worship together, or prophesy together, they could never do so in spirit and in truth, for such a spirit would accept EVERY brother in Christ without respect for persons.

How long has it been since I have worshipped in the spirit? I may measure that moment against the period of time since I was last able to accept every brother in Christ-like love and in unity, forgetting their trespasses, but remembering that the blood that covers their door post is the same blood that covers mine. That the Spirit that moves through them is the same Spirit that moves through me. That the wisdom and fellowship they have tried to share with me was not from the pits of their own dying branches of unrighteousness, but sprung forth from the living vine amongst which they dwell, the same vine of which I am but a fresh, budding twig. When I view every brother in light of Christ and his power to changes hearts in spite of the hardness of those hearts, and when I see each soul in the light of the hope that one day, we will ALL be perfected in Christ, it will be that day that I can worship again with them in unity. Moreover, where that unity dwells, I will then again be able to worship in spirit and in truth. But if that day never comes, and I lift my hands toward heaven without that light, I sin against God, and grieve the Holy Spirit.

“Lord, open mine eyes that I might see your light shining down upon the people you have saved and ordained for your holy calling. For they are your workmanship, and I but dwell among them with the same hope you have laid down upon each soul in which the Holy Spirit dwells.”