Take a moment to Imagine with me the moment Jesus ascended into heaven. Now picture the gathering of followers Jesus had brought to Galilee to witness this moment. Everyone is there, chatting about what happens next, and Jesus suddenly leaves them to go back to heaven.

What do you think they were thinking? What do you think they were feeling as they were trying to digest all they had seen and experienced with their best friend and leader, Jesus?

Among a multitude of thoughts, fears, and emotions. I would imagine they were having some flashbacks to their moments with Him.

Typically, when a new employee is hired in a company, the company will typically have the employee go through around a ninety day onboarding process to get the new hire up to speed and familiar with its processes and products, and how the company works overall. 

My question as it relates to the Church is simple…

What is the Churches onboarding process when a new believer in Jesus gives their life to Him?

At the time you gave your life to Christ, you may not have realized this, but your entire identity and ministry shifted. At that moment, you became responsible for taking the message of Jesus to lost people in your life - the same way the person who shared with you was responsible for that ministry.

This is the new ministry of reconciliation that you and I have as followers of Jesus.

This is a video testimony from Wendy Martin about embracing the mission and the mandate of the Great Commission. There is also a transcript of the video available.

This is a video we share often with those involved with Sharpening Ministries to help them catch the vision of disciple-making. The impact we can have by pouring our life into one man, or one woman, is tremendous.

In the Great Commission Jesus says it really clearly. He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

So part of fulfilling the Great Commission is to literally take what God has taught you, and reteach that truth to someone younger in the faith.

What if you took that mindset into your next Sunday morning? Or Bible Study? Or quiet time? What would change? What if you asked the question, “What will I do with what I heard today? Who will I reteach this truth to?” These type of questions spark wildfires of discipleship in the church.

It’s inevitable, you’re going to make disciples this year. You will teach someone how to live, think, respond, and act. The question is, what type of disciple are you making? One that looks like the world? Or one that looks like Jesus?

Briefly here, I will lay out what Sharpening Ministries looks for when trying to see if someone is a genuine follower of Jesus Christ. There could be many more verses we look at, but these three verses seem to summarize what it means to be someone who follows Jesus and obey’s his commandments.

If you’re wondering about how to grow your relationship with God, reading, meditating on, and putting these verses into action would be a great start.

If you’ve been in or around church for any length of time it’s likely that you’ve heard the phrase, “the lost.” Sometimes people within the church can use the phrase to explain the poor behavior of people, sometimes the phrase is used to identify the type of person a Christian should share the Gospel with, and sometimes the phrase, unfortunately, can be used to speak poorly about people.

None of that is what we’re going to do here. We’re simply going to answer the question, “What does it mean to be lost?” using a few passages from the Bible.

This will help us explain more in-depth who our target is at Sharpening Ministries and it will allow us to fully understand the depth of what it means to not have a relationship with Jesus.