Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples after His crucifixion but before His ascension into heaven. He told them to "make disciples".
- "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19).
Every disciple didn't go to every nation. You can make disciples where you are, within your family, with your acquaintances or while you are standing in line at the grocery store. All Christians are supposed to make disciples. If you are unsure about that, see subchapter A5 in the appendix titled, "Are All Christians Supposed to Make Disciples?" Don't be afraid of making disciples. It's easy. You repeat the words of the Father and pray.
Jesus also said, "take my yoke upon you." He said that His yoke was "easy":
- "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"" (Matthew 11:28-30).
What is His yoke? A yoke is an implement of work. It is used to harness two animals together to pull a burden. It is His yoke that we take. So, what work of Christ do we take? His yoke is to make disciples. It is written: "the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10)
When Jesus originally called the disciples He said to them "Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men" (Matthew 4:19). Jesus then spent three years training the disciples in the supernatural activity of making disciples. When He left this world He told them to "make disciples". Many other scriptures indicate that following Him includes making disciples (Luke 9:59-60, John 21:17-19, Matthew 28:19)
Jesus said, "take my yoke... and you will find rest... my yoke is easy" How can it be easy? It is easy because we receive supernatural "rest" when we take up His work.
By looking at what Jesus and the disciples did, we can understand how to make disciples. We imitate them. In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul wrote, "Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ". If we should imitate them, what did they do? They repeated the words of the Father and prayed.
While Jesus said that it is easy, He didn't say that it would be painless. "Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34). So, making disciples is easy to do, results in rest for the soul and results in suffering.
What is this rest? When we follow Him by making disciples, we have fellowship with God. It is something that we do together. I believe that the rest is the joy of intimate fellowship with God.
I have said that the apostles passed the faith using a two-step process. They repeated the words of the Father and prayed. Now, I will divide those two steps into four mini steps.
Here is how we PASS the faith. It's easy:
P PRAY
A ASK
S SPEAK
S SPIRIT
Here is how we PASS the faith with a little more detail:
P PRAY the scriptures.
A Ask for words of the gospel.
S Speak, the words God gives you.
S The Holy Spirit does the rest.
The acronym PASS, makes the disciple making process easy to remember. PASS adds some details to the two step method I have described previously. In the Two Step, we speak the words of the Father and pray. So, PASS and Two Step are two descriptions of the same simple method. The first two parts are both prayer. The third part is speaking the word of the Father. The fourth is observation. We watch and wait as the Holy Spirit works.
The four parts of the two step process are described below.
PRAY:
PRAY the scriptures
You learned how to PRAY the scriptures in subchapter 1.2. The acronym PRAY is an abbreviation for Praise, Read, Ask, Yield. This is how God's words take root in your soul. After you PRAY God's words, the Holy Spirit will remind you of them at a time of His choosing. "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you" (John 14:26). You will have fellowship with God as you pray the Endorsed Prayers and other scriptures. Later, He will remind you of His words to help you mature in your faith. He will also remind you of His words, at an opportune time, to repeat His words to others as you make disciples.
ASK:
Ask God to give you words of the gospel.
In subchapter 4.4, you saw how the apostle Paul asked God for words for presenting the gospel (Ephesians 6:18-19). Ask as he did. The gospel applies to conversion. It also applies to helping believers grow in their faith (Paul desired to preach the gospel to the Christians in Rome, Romans 1:8, 15). He preached the gospel to Christians because the gospel addresses more than conversion. So, disciple-making includes converting unbelievers. It also includes working to increase the faith and love of believers (sanctification). If you trust God to give you words to present the gospel, He will give you words to present the gospel.
SPEAK:
Speak by faith the words He gives you.
After asking God for the words as Paul did, believe that He will give them to you. Then speak the words He puts into your mind. These words may include words from scripture that the Holy Spirit will remind you of. God may remind you of scripture about faith, love or God's power. If we have faith that God will give us the words, God will. If we have doubts, God won't give us the words.
Remember James 1:6-7 from the Endorsed Prayers: "But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. 7 For that man shouldn't think that he will receive anything from the Lord."
So, if we believe that God will give us words through our prayer, He will. If we don't, He won't. Walking by the Spirit is a matter of faith. If we doubt, we can't. If we trust, we can walk by the Spirit. So, passing the faith is also a matter of faith. We pass the faith by faith.
If we don't have enough faith, we can ask God to increase our faith by praying the Endorsed Prayer of Faith. That prayer is discussed in subchapter 4.3a. We must ask for something that we believe God will grant. So, if you believe that God will increase your faith by 10%, then ask for that. Then ask again and again. If you don't believe that God will increase your faith, then PRAY the scriptures on that subject in the chapter on the Endorsed Prayer of Faith (4.3a).
If you don't understand the scriptures, ask God for understanding (Endorsed Prayer of Revelation in subchapter 4.2d). Be patient. Some verses have taken four decades for me to understand. The Holy Spirit reveals truth progressively, when and as you are ready for it. Jesus said "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12). If you don't hear the scriptures because you don't believe the scriptures, you need to be born again. If you do not belong to God, you can not hear. In John 8:47, Jesus said, "He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don't hear, because you are not of God."
SPIRIT:
The Holy Spirit does the rest.
- "As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don't need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him" (1 John 2:27).
- Jesus said, "When he (the Holy Spirit) has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; 9 about sin, because they don't believe in me" (John 16:8-9).
Making disciples includes evangelism. It also includes helping those who already believe to grow in their faith. In the first passage, the Holy Spirit teaches the believer "concerning all things". In the second passage, the Holy Spirit works in the heart of unbelievers to convict them "about sin". Much scripture and detail regarding this process is provided in the micro-subchapter 3.1h titled "How does one escape Satan's realm?"
1978
I attended the University of Texas. It was and is a very large, very liberal, secular, state university. It was and is a very well-known party school. I was a member of a large fraternity there. One day a fraternity brother asked me if I would lead a Bible study our fraternity. His name was Sam. He was double majoring in Premed and Biomedical Engineering. (You may have been duped into believing that Christians are unintelligent. That is a delusion created by various propaganda machines. Its simply not true. After college he became an Ophthalmologist, an eye doctor. )
Sam had led a CRU Bible Study in this fraternity and was graduating. That is why he asked me to lead the group. This was not a Christian fraternity. I told him right then that I couldn't do it. I didn't mean that I was unwilling or didn't have time. I meant that I was incapable, incompetent for the task.
He looked me straight in the eye and said. "It is not your words that you will speak. You will speak words of scripture, and his word will not return void. It is not your job to convict others of sin. The Holy Spirit will do that. Pray about it." I prayed about it and led the group. I had an internal witness that I should.
Here is the scriptural proof for what my fraternity brother had told me.
- God said, "so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do" (Isaiah 55:11).
- Jesus said, "When he (the Holy Spirit) has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; 9 about sin, because they don't believe in me" (John 16:8-9).
Notice in the first verse that God's words always accomplish what He wants. The second verse reveals that the Holy Spirit works in the life of unbelievers. As I said, I led the Bible study weekly. I also prayed at least fifteen minutes per day for my fraternity. The fraternity had about one hundred and forty men. But the Bible study group was very small. Few came.
I spent over an hour per day in my personal Bible study. Over two years, I spent a lot of time with a few guys outside the Bible study. They would ask questions. I would pray silently, asking God for the answer. They probably thought that I was thinking, but I was praying. As I prayed about their question, I would show them the appropriate scripture in the Bible. The Holy Spirit would remind me of the passage that answered their questions. Sometimes this would go on for hours. There names are Joseph and Doug.
At some point, a conviction arose in me that God had taught them all that He intended to teach them, through me. I told them this and they asked "what should we do?" I took them to a CRU meeting, introduced them to staff, and told them that I believed that God's leading would come through CRU. From that point, they went to CRU meetings. I did not. Then I passed the ministry on to them when I graduated. I went into the business world.
When they graduated, they went to seminary, then into the full time ministry spreading the Gospel. They had become Christians in a fraternity. Not in a church.
But while they were still in college, God used them to grow the Christian fellowship in our non-Christian fraternity, to the point that about twenty of them went on a mission trip to share their faith. Never say that a Great Awakening in any country is impossible. Pray for a great awakening!