Priority’s Glo Girl Conference is this Friday (don’t worry, you can still register), so I thought I’d give you a sneak peek into the messages I’ll be sharing. God has been prompting, prodding, and sometimes even pestering me (and I mean that in the most positive pestering way possible) about the topic He’s given me to teach at conference. It’s a topic that is very near and dear to His heart and very important for you and me.
But before I share that topic with you, I want to ask you two quick questions:
- Question #1: Are you a Christian?
- Question #2: Are you a disciple?
If you answered question #1 with an immediate “yes,” that’s wonderful. If, however, you hesitated to answer question #2, that’s OK. No, it wasn’t a trick question, but question #2 was designed to make you stop. And think.
You see, many women feel very confident answering question #1 with a great, big, positive YES! But question #2? Ummm. Sometimes not so much. And that, precious sister, is a problem, and here’s why:
Jesus called us to be disciples (Matt. 16:24). And although ALL disciples ARE Christians, ALL Christians are NOT disciples. See the problem?
It reminds me of a program I watched the other day called Desperate Landscapes. It’s a series on HGTV where they do an amazing makeover on someone’s scourge-of-the-neighborhood, eyesore of a yard. But in the episode I watched, they were making surprise visits to several homeowners whose yards they’d transformed the previous year. They wanted to see if the homeowners were maintaining their outdoor makeovers.
I could only watch about five minutes. It made me sad. And sick. Weeds everywhere. Dead trees and crispy shrubs. Yards that looked as bad as they had before the makeover. And excuse after excuse after excuse from the embarrassed and ashamed homeowners.
You know what? Jesus did a makeover on us: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17 NKJV). So . . . what if He surprised us and came back today? Would He find us thriving – glo-ing and growing – in our walk with Him? If we are disciples, yes, He would. But if not, the Bible says that we’ll be a lot like those embarrassed homeowners on Desperate Landscapes: we will “shrink away from Him in shame” (1 John 2:28).
I’m hoping and praying that I’ll see lots of you at the Glo Girl Conference! But I’m hoping and praying even more that all of you will respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship just like Peter, James, Andrew, James, and John did: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow Me’ . . . and immediately, they left their nets and followed Him” (Mark 1:17-28 NASB).
Precious sister, do not hesitate. And do not settle for a watered-down, lukewarm version of Christianity either. Accept the invitation of a lifetime. Follow Jesus. Be His disciple.
[Repost from You Glo Girl! September 2011]
Q: When have you seen a dramatic makeover become neglected?