In today’s post, let’s consider what’s next once we have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior. But, before we can consider this, we need to share a mutual understanding of just who Jesus is.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.”
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Who is Jesus?
Jesus’ work of redemption has provided the exclusive way for a person to be reconciled to God (1). He is the Son of God, and the Son of God is spirit. We know this because “God is Spirit” (2) and God is trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit (3). We know that Jesus came from heaven (4), He ministered as the Son of Man (5), and He ascended back to heaven (6). And He told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait to be baptized by the Holy Spirit (7).
They stayed and were baptized in the Holy Spirit (8). This event was the birth of the Church, the Bride of Christ (9). Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His apostles, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (10)” In this, Jesus told His apostles that His human nature (His manhood) had received all authority. His Divine nature could not receive anything, for He is God.
Do we make disciples?
As followers of Jesus, we have been baptized into the name of God, the triune name. There is one name into which we are baptized because there is one God. He is triune, Father, Son, Spirit, yet one. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (11)”
We have placed our faith in this Jesus that God’s Word has declared. And, like an officer in the military, we have been commissioned. So, what’s next? I’m not referring to eschatology – the study of the end times). I’m asking this: what do we do after being born again. (12)
Jesus gave His apostles, and through His apostles to us, the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (13)” Great. How do I “make a disciple?” I’m glad you asked. 😉
What’s next?
In my next post, I will provide some practical guidance. It is the kind of approach that even the most ardent introvert can use. I hope you join me next time!
Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash
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