If we considered Jesus’ definition of a disciple, we would likely conclude the percentage of professing Christians today who are true disciples to be less than 10%. As seen in the Gospels, far more people followed Jesus than became His disciples. So, we don’t want to discount those who do not comply with all the requirements of disciples as not true believers or not truly redeemed. As the apostle Paul said, “the Lord knows those who are His” (see II Timothy 2:19), indicating God will judge them, not us. 

          That being...

          We have been looking at the body of Christ in general in light of where we are going. As the great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” We need to have a clear vision of where we are going, but to get there, we must know where we are. A map of our destination won’t do us much good if we can’t find our current location on the map. 

          Our goal for examining where we are now is not...

       We have been addressing how the weakening of the call to follow Jesus has produced weak followers. This is not the only contributing factor to this, but it is a big one. The teaching found in most churches in the West, which focuses more on the benefits and blessings of believers in place of Christ, is another. 

       These teachings may be true, but when out of balance, they only feed the self-centeredness from which the Lord has delivered us. We will not become who we are called to be by focusing on ourselves....

         When the civil powers of Israel threatened the apostles if they continued to preach in Jesus’ name, they did not pray for more miracles, healing, or prophetic words so they could be more persuasive. They prayed for more boldness (see Acts 4:23-31). Boldness is the willingness or ability to be decisive and take risks. When we recognize the difference between the two trees in the garden, we can boldly make the right choices between them. 

         A basic choice everyone must make is to trust the Lord and believe His Word or trust the...

     The Lord said the end of this age will be “the harvest.” As we see in the book of Revelation, the whole earth, including every nation and tongue, will be a part of this. It will be the biggest ingathering ever. One reason for this will be another event the Lord said would come at the end of this age—the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom throughout the world. 

     The gospel of the kingdom is different from what is considered “the gospel” today, which is about our redemption through the cross. The good news...