My Sunday morning Bible study girls and I have gone almost seven weeks through the book of John. I sit here at my kitchen table, reading the last three chapters of my most favorite book, preparing to write out this week's study guide. Chapter 19 - Jesus' crucifixion, chapter 20 - Resurrection!, chapter 21 - Peter's restoration that I have loved for at least a decade. "Do you love Me?" Oh yes, very much.
We've decided to do Matthew next, to get another glance at Jesus from a different angle. The Synoptic gospels have so many other details that John does not, and vice versa... so many parables and teachings, the Sermon on the Mount, the Christmas story, other miracles...
But I couldn't let this moment pass without praising the Lord for these weeks.
A week ago, one of them said, "The other day I did two days back-to-back because I didn't want to stop. I was enjoying it so much!"
Yesterday morning, one of them was describing a Night of Worship event we had had for Women's Ministry the night before. There was a lyric about our lives being raised like Lazarus - and she said, "I knew that story! I knew what it was talking about!"
Another said, "I went to that event expecting deliverance. But He told me that I'd already been delivered. Now I need to learn to walk in freedom."
YES! Learn to walk in freedom.
That's what these ladies have been doing week after week. That's what discipleship is. Digging into the Word and seeing what it says and how it applies to your daily walk... in freedom!
Recently, I spent a day at a friend's local cabin, to spend with the Lord. One of the things He reminded me, gave me afresh, was this most deep and profound calling, the Great Commission:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20
Go. Make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them. Remember He's with us.
I've gone - oversees, across the country. But it has been the privilege of my life in this season to start getting to baptize, to teach, to make disciples.
These ladies are truly becoming disciples. In fact, that was one of their first questions: "What's a disciple?" "Well, it's a student. And we can be one too."
They're seeing that now, most of them for the first time.
And on Week 7, I just wanted to commemorate this most precious of gifts: these disciples, in an upstairs room every Sunday, learning to walk in freedom.
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