"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Mahatma Gandhi
This indictment is one I hear frequently and I think at the root is a discipleship crisis.
It all comes down to whether we're living a questionable life...one that others can't help but ask why we live so counter-intuitively, counter-culturally.
The answer is in living a 3-dimensional life.
In your prayer time, concentrate/reflect on the 3 rhythms of
UP--meaningful time with the Father
IN--meaningful time with Christian community
OUT--meaningful time with the least, the last and the lost.
UP. Spend time worshipping God. Not petitioning him for any requests. Just heap praise and gratitude and glory on His name. Who do you know Him to be? Take time and jot down a list in your prayer time of 10 attributes you know God to be first hand. Then jot down a few attributes that you know others or the Bible ascribe to God, but you haven't known Him in this way.
IN. Are you in meaningful community with other Christians that adds life to those in the community? If so, pray for the people in that community. Intercede where you sense God needs to work and how you can all know each other and be known by each other more fully. If you do not have meaningful community with Christians, reflect on why that has happened? Is there something in you tied to fear or jadedness or withdrawing that keeps you isolated from the Body of Christ?
OUT. Who are you called to love in a a specific way that does not yet have meaningful faith in Christ? Who do you desperately want to know and find Christ? Who outside of the church do you know of with very real, tangible need? Who are you called to be good news to? Spend time jotting down names of people who God brings to mind as answers to these questions. Begin to pray very specific prayers for them.
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