COV LIFE BLOG

This One Life: Making Disciples

C.S. Lewis wrote these well-known words: “ It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” If this is indeed true, there is no greater calling given to human beings than to accompany another in a journey of the heart towards God. This quest is not one towards mere intellectual acceptance of theological concepts or moral principles, but a transforming encounter of one’s soul with its infinite and divine Creator. To walk with another on such a soul journey, experiencing together the healing touch of the resurrected Jesus in the deepest reaches of their soul, is a calling that truly transcends time and space, and one to which all the other pursuits of life seem vain in comparison.

Yet how ironic that we persist in measuring ministry success in terms of buildings, bodies, and programs, all the while overlooking this far more noble and eternal calling of discipleship and spiritual companionship that God has given His people. How sad that Christ’s workers often live in a spirit of defeat, feeling they are a failure if their church plant does not grow in exponential fashion. Would laboring in obscurity be so difficult for us if we simply realized the enormous depth and value of just one human heart? Truly, a lifetime of struggle for the sake of His kingdom is but “a momentary and light affliction” (2 Cor. 4:17) compared to this glorious work. Cathedrals will crumble, ministries will fail, and the applause of others will fade; but the privilege of accompanying another on a journey towards their inner transformation will last and bear fruit through all of eternity.

Truly, there are no mere mortals among us. May this highest of callings Christ has given us to “go into all the world and make disciples” be our only passion in light of the unsurpassing riches hidden in just one human heart. It is the only eternal work that is worth devoting ourselves to.

Jeff Kirsch

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Heart Preparation
Read Matthew 4:19; Matthew 28:19-20; and 2 Timothy 2:2. Are you making disciples? If not, who can you disciple?