Where am I?

January 28

Read: Luke 17:11-19

In the book “The Disciple-Making Pastor”, Bill Hull makes a sad statement. On page 222, he writes:

While 50% of the congregation never leaves the come-and-see phase, the happy focus is that the other half will. The psychopathology of not moving from “come and see” I will leave to the analytical.

This is not to say that he advocates abandoning the 50% of the congregation that will not move down the road to discipleship. Earlier, he states very clearly that they are God’s children and part of our ministry. The sadness is that, unfortunately, there is a relatively large number of professed Christians who will never get beyond the Sunday morning church stage.

The story in Luke 17 gives us a similar picture. Jesus, encountering ten lepers standing outside of a village, was moved by their cries to heal them of the dread disease. The Bible says Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they went, they were cleansed. Imagine the joy and excitement among the group as they realized that each of them was being freed from their awful condition. One of them, a Samaritan, recognizing the wonderful blessing could only have come from God, begins to glorify Him with a loud voice. He turns and comes back to Jesus, throws himself at His feet and begins to thank Him. The other nine walk on.

Jesus asks the rhetorical questions, “Were not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Sadly, only one, and he a stranger and heathen, returned to give glory to God.

If you are a Christian today, a born-again believer, you have been healed of a disease far more serious than leprosy. God’s purpose in doing so is much bigger than simply providing an escape hatch for eternity. He wants to make you a disciple of Jesus, one who shares His mission and His character. It baffles me than anyone can be a child of God, born of the Spirit and the blood of Christ, an inheritor of eternal life and the glories of heaven, a partaker of the divine nature, and yet be unwilling to be used of God for His glory. God forbid that I should find myself among the 50% who only take.

Just a servant,

Bro. Tom
Phil 1:6

Truth is Eternal - Balthasar Hubmaier