Making Disciples – Relationship or Religion
The Great Commission is to go and make Disciples. This is not done over night. It is a process of making Obedient followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. The modern day church tends to make a one time act or decision into a relationship with God. This is nothing more than “Religion.” Relationship with God involves me “Hearing His Voice and Following Him.” Man like to think he can get “into Heaven” by praying a prayer. Let’s see where he is 20-30 years down the line. Is he still an Obedient follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, then Jesus is not his Lord, and he will not find himself in heaven. The bible tell you and I we must Abide with Him. “My sheep are Hearing my voice and are Following Me.”
We are commanded to “Abide, Remain and Continue. We are warned departing from God.
Heb 10:38-39 “NOW THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; BUT IF ANYONE DRAWS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.”
But we are not of those who draw back to perdition (Destruction), but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.”
Heb 6:11-12 “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” The Promises of God are for those who continue in their Faith and Love for God. Those who are having Relationship with God right now.
Col 1:21-23 “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”
Rom 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
Heb 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end…”
Some like to negate the warnings of Christ; “He could not possibly have meant what He just said.”
John 15:6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Decisions or Disciples?
By A.W. Tozer
“Today we need people who dare to question the status quo and say, “Wait a minute here. Where do you find this in the Bible?” The idea that all you have to do is to accept Christ and you are in is a great mistake. It leaves people with the impression that if they accept Christ they have no fight to fight, no warfare, no job to do and no temptations. They are just in. When you accept Christ rightly as your Lord and Savior you are in, but to be honest, you have just started to fight. People get converted and we do not tell them that they must fight all the way through to heaven because of the spirit of degeneration and the tendency to deteriorate. They must fight, pray through, suffer it out and live in praise and worship, because if they do not they will deteriorate. Read the history of the Christian church if you can keep your faith and keep from weeping.”
Many start off well and never finish well! Because they have been taught religion instead of Relationship. They think because of their one time words of faith they have relationship with God. The Bible says, “Cling to Him for He is your life!” We are tio have a “Living Fath” not a dead one. Religion is Dead Faith.
Instant Christianity
Quote from one of my Favorite Authors– A W Tozer 
Instant Christianity came in with the machine age. Men invented machines for two purposes. They wanted to get important work done more quickly and easily than they could do it by hand, and they wanted to get the work over with so they could give their time to other pursuits more to their liking, such as loafing or enjoying the pleasures of this world. Instant Christianity now serves the same purposes in religion. It disposes of the past, guarantees the future and sets the Christian free to follow the more refined lusts of the flesh in all good conscience and with a minimum of restraint.
By “instant Christianity” I mean the kind found almost everywhere in gospel circles and which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition. We are saints by calling, our teachers keep telling us, and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present that is completely out of more with the faith of the New Testament.
In this error, as in most others, there lies a certain amount of truth imperfectly understood. It is true that conversion to Christ may be and often is sudden. Where the burden of sin has been heavy, the sense of forgiveness is usually clear and joyful. The delight experienced in forgiveness is equal to the degree of moral repugnance felt in repentance. The true Christian has met God. He knows he has eternal life and he is likely to know where and when he received it.
But the trouble is that we tend to put our trust in our experiences and as a consequence misread the entire New Testament. We are constantly exhorted to make the decision, to settle the matter now, to get the whole thing taken care of at once – and those who exhort us are right in doing so. There are decisions that can be and should be made once for all. There are personal matters that can be settled instantaneously by a determined act of the will in response to Bible-grounded faith.
Instant Christianity tends to make the faith act the terminal (end) and so smother the desire for spiritual advance. It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding.
By trying to pack all of salvation into one experience, or two, the advocates of instant Christianity flaunt the law of development which runs through all nature. They ignore the sanctifying effects of suffering, cross carrying, and practical obedience. They pass by the need for spiritual training, the necessity of forming right religious habits and the need to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh.
