Tag: spirituality

Why Disciple-Making Must Begin with the Gospel

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Today we launched a new discipleship group on my back porch at 6:45am. In our first meeting together, we carefully explained and studied the core message of the gospel. We began with God and His character, considered man’s need because of his sin, Christ’s righteous life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection, and the need for responding in repentance and faith. We discussed our individual experiences hearing, believing, and living the gospel. Though it may seem basic, starting any disciple-making effort must start with the gospel. Here’s why:

1. The gospel is the entry-point into life with God.

A disciple is someone who is following Jesus. Someone who is walking with God. The gospel is the message that brings us to God. The content of the gospel- Christ’s life, death, and resurrection- is the power of God to save (Romans 1:16). By believing it, we become sons and daughters of God, and begin a new life with God. We must start disciple-making with the gospel because it is quite literally the starting point of our lives with God.

2. The gospel is the foundation of walking with God.

Not only is the gospel the starting point of life with God, it is also the foundation of the believer’s future walk with God. We never outgrow our need for the gospel. Every day we are sinners in need of God’s grace. Every day we are recipients of God’s grace in Christ. Every day God sees us, not in our sin, but in the perfect righteousness of the Son.

Continue reading “Why Disciple-Making Must Begin with the Gospel” →

The Anxious Generation: Unveiling the Impact of Smartphones and Social Media

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Book Reviews2 Comments

What makes a book good? Good books fill gaps in knowledge, whether it be our own or society’s at large. Good books serve as a key to unlock the mystery of something that happened in history or is presently occurring in the world. There’s something satisfying about reading and thinking, “so that’s what’s happening.” But good books must also compel and prescribe action. No one wants a book full of statistics and trends that offers no advice on what to do with them. Perhaps such books are necessary, but they don’t fit my definition of a good book.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a good book. It fills a gap in society’s knowledge by answering the question of what’s causing the rapid increase of mental illness among Gen Z. It also solves the mystery of how smart phones and social media are changing childhood and affecting our mental health. And it offers compelling calls to action to parents, schools, governments, and tech companies. It is an excellent book.

In The Anxious Generation, Haidt argues that “the great rewiring” of childhood is causing the current epidemic of mental illness among Generation Z (those born after 1997). This rewiring consists primarily of the the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood that took place in the early 2010s.

Continue reading “The Anxious Generation: Unveiling the Impact of Smartphones and Social Media” →

Discipleship Happens in Relationships

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Miscellaneous1 Comment

Discipleship is an integral part of the believer’s life and a necessary component of any local church’s ministry. However, discipleship can be easily misunderstood and become a sort of grey, ambiguous term, something that we all know we should be a part of but we aren’t sure how. We know that Jesus invites us to be disciples and commands us to make disciples, but we don’t really know what that looks like. So what does it look like? Relationships. Relationships with the purpose of growing in Christ.

Let me start by defining terms. Discipleship is the process of following Jesus. Disciple-making is the process of helping people follow Jesus. This is primarily done through relationships. Disciples are not made via online sermons, curriculum, or printed books. They are made through participation in the body of Christ, especially through participation in relationships.

Continue reading “Discipleship Happens in Relationships” →

Six Key Benefits of the Necessary Evangelism Component in Discipleship

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Discipleship, Miscellaneous1 Comment

Yes. I am afraid. Every time I begin to share about Jesus with someone, millions of thoughts run through my head about how I may offend or be received wrongly. Have you ever felt the same?

This is the log jam in the discipleship process and to fulfilling the Great Commission: evangelism. Sharing our faith. Why? Often times it is because we haven’t seen it modeled, or haven’t been taught “how.” Even in our rigorous attempts at discipleship have not fixed the problem, because discipleship has come to be regarded as a practice without the necessary component of evangelism training or practice. However, treating evangelism as a necessary part of discipleship helps to grow mature disciples, and is absolutely necessary. I read a great article recently highlighting 6 reasons why. Here they are: Continue reading “Six Key Benefits of the Necessary Evangelism Component in Discipleship” →

Coming to the Blood of Jesus -Spurgeon

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn MiscellaneousLeave a comment

“and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”    – Hebrews 12:24

Reader, have you come to the blood of sprinkling? The question is not whether you have come to a knowledge of doctrine, or an observance of ceremonies, or to a certain form of experience, but have you come to the blood of Jesus?
The blood of Jesus is the life of all vital godliness. If you have truly come to Jesus, we know how you came–the Holy Spirit sweetly brought you there. You came to the blood of sprinkling with no merits of your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you came to take that blood, and that blood alone, as your everlasting hope. You came to the cross of Christ, with a trembling and an aching heart; and oh! what a precious sound it was to you to hear the voice of the blood of Jesus! Continue reading “Coming to the Blood of Jesus -Spurgeon” →

An Example of Praying Without Ceasing- Sir Thomas Browne

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn MiscellaneousLeave a comment

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Despite a time where England was passing through a period of national convulsion and political excitement, men and women of God found comfort and strength through prayer. One beloved English physician, named Sir Thomas Browne, is one of these men. He wrote in his journal,”I have resolved to pray more and pray always, to pray in all places where quietness invites, in the house, on the highway and on the street; and to know no street or passage in this city that may not witness that I have not forgotten God.”

Do we witness that we have not forgotten God in all places?

Browne adds, “I purpose to take occasion of praying upon the sight of any church which I may pass, that God may be worshiped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved there; to pray daily for my sick patients and for the patients of other physicians; at my entrance into any home to say, “May the peace of God abide here;” after hearing a sermon, to pray for a blessing on God’s truth, and upon the messenger; upon the sight of a beautiful person to bless God for His creatures, to pray for the beauty of such an one’s soul, that God may enrich her with inward graces, and that the outward and inward may correspond; upon the sight of a deformed person, to pray God to give them wholeness of soul, and by and but to give them the beauty of the resurrection.”

May adding constant daily patterns of prayer give us comfort and strength through our hard times?

The Never-Changing God

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn TheologyLeave a comment

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Our God NEVER changes. One may think, “great, how is that of use to me?” It is of great importance to us! Think of the ways that Jesus responded to the crowds in the first chapters of Mark: there were three different instances when Jesus was almost crushed by crowds of people. He even had to tell his disciples to prepare a boat that He could get in if the crowds started to crush Him (yes, that many people were running to Him!) When He went home to sleep that night, the scriptures say that the entire town was at His house! Yet, He skipped his meal, stayed and ministered to and loved on the people so much that his own family remarked that he was “out of his mind.” So, if He never changes, He still has this disposition, and He still reacts this way to those who run to Him.

Here is solid comfort. Our human nature cannot be relied on, but we can rely on God! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God does not change. If He changed as we do; if He willed one thing today and another tomorrow, if He were controlled by His mood, who could reveal their secrets to Him? However, we can bring Him praise and worship, because He is ever the same! His purpose is fixed, His will is stable, His Word is sure. Here then is a Rock on which we may fix our feet, while the mighty oceans of life try to sweep us away. (My translation of A.W Pinks Attributes, pp 692 Kindle)

Think about it. His character is permanent. He could never change for the better, for that would imply that there was something about Him that needed improving before, and thus, He wouldn’t be a perfect God. He has always been, and forever will be, the same, perfect, God. The permanence of His character guarantees the fulfillment of His promises:

“For the mountains may depart
    and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”               Isaiah 54:10

His promises are true. His hatred of sin endures forever. His love for His children never changes. His satisfaction with the sacrifice His Son paid for our sins will never change…Aren’t you glad that our God never changes?

Looking Unto Jesus- Charles Spurgeon

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn MiscellaneousLeave a comment

“Looking unto Jesus.” —Hebrews 12:2

“It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ.

He insinuates, ‘Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of His children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus.’

All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: He tells us that we are nothing, but that ‘Christ is all in all.’

Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee—it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee—it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument—it is Christ’s blood and merits.

Therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith.

We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by ‘looking unto Jesus.’

Keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to Him; when thou liest down at night look to Him.

Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after Him, and He will never fail thee.

‘My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesu’s blood and righteousness:
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesu’s name.’”

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–Charles Spurgeon, “June 28 – Morning” in Morning and Evening (Geanies House, Fearn, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 1994), 378.