MENTORING - Who's life are you personally affecting today for Christ?

The great Revivalist John Wesley had a General Rules for Methodist Fellowships that was released in 1743 and in it he stated, 'Watch over one another in love'. That was the key to his success in retaining those who were converted through one of the world’s greatest spiritual revivals. That key is called discipleship. The point is, that we are our brother’s keeper in some respect and the revived Christians of Wesley’s day understood that and had an innate understanding that they needed to care for one another, as did the early Christians of the New Testament. So basically what mentoring really is, is simply watching over one another because we love each other as Christ loves us. Most people seek out mentors to help them develop in some area of their life, that they feel need an extra hand in reaching the goals they have set for themselves, to maximize the grace of God in their lives. It requires a unique amount of trust on both the person who will mentor or disciple and the one who is being mentored or discipled. Finding the right person may take a few tries, but is well worth the effort once you do.
Mentoring or discipleship is taking place all around us and at all levels of industry, education, commerce and public life. Parents mentor their children. The journeyman mentors the apprentice and Coaches mentor their teams. Those who take their Christian discipleship and service seriously are seeing the value of having a mentor as a friend and adviser with whom they can share openly and to whom they can be accountable to. As the scripture instructs us, “Two are better than one” in Eccl. 4:9. Mentoring is a very significant role every Christian disciple can fulfill, irrespective of age or experience. It is not restricted to people who are giants in their faith, but as God’s Word tells us that all who are in Christ are to be disciples going into the world and declaring the gospel to all nations. That scripture does not stop at sharing salvation in Christ alone. It means to make disciples of Christ and that takes a little bit of time to do. The basic requirement of discipleship or being a Spiritual mentor is having a living, growing relationship with God and an ability to listen and respond sensitively, and to encourage. If this is true of you, you can be God’s agent in enriching another person’s life. All you need is to be available.
Women are natural mentors, because they usually find it easy to talk about deep issues with their friends. Even busy people can mentor if they make the choice to reach out and be a listening ear and be willing to provide a kind word of encouragement when needed. Folks that are housebound because of young families or a physical disability can mentor effectively by means of their phones, email or by inviting others to visit them, or simply send cards. Seniors who mentor often times find it very fulfilling as they are growing into their mature years and allows them to grow older as participants rather than spectators only! The bottom line is that we are all needy people and need someone to love on us.
I became a Christian in 1978 and started teaching a Youth Bible Study within 2 months after I was saved. I was so hungry for the Word of God in my life that I consumed it as much as I could. I enrolled in Bible College and soaked up as much as I could learn from my teachers/professors. I found within the pages of God’s Word the answers that I had been searching for all my life and felt a compulsion to share it with others and still do today. Throughout my adult life I have been blessed to have had contact with some great Christian influences that have helped disciple me along my way. I also have been allowed the great privilege of discipling a few folks myself and can personally testify to the life changing effects that good discipleship can have on someone’s life and walk in Christ. In thinking of you today sweet friend, I ask you this question, “Who’s life are you personally effecting today for Christ?”.
Maybe today, you need someone to affect your life for Christ. Either way, there must be discipling going on in you and around you if you are to be effective in your spiritual walk. Someone, needs you to take the time out of your busy schedule and show them how important they are to you and Jesus. Maybe you need to seek out a friend that will come along side you and help you grow and maximize the grace of God in your life. Do it today, don’t put it off! Make a difference!

Loving on you today,
Bren

WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER RETURNS

She is the apple of your eye. No matter how many other daughters you may have or what others may think or the judgment that she may bring on herself, because of her wrong choices, she still remains the apple of your eye, just as David was the apple of God’s eye, so your precious daughter is yours.

Today sweet friend, you may have a young daughter who is growing up and the world has a lot to say to her, and she is starting to listen. Even if she doesn’t know it right now, you know that she needs you more than ever. Redeem these days, for they are but vapors and they will disappear soon. What you pour into her life now, she will recall in the days as she is growing older and making adult choices. Some of the choices that she will make may very well be painful, but do not despair even when your heart tells you lies and blames you for her mistakes if and when she strays off course for a while. Stay true and faithful to her and God’s Word….for It never comes back void! It will accomplish, what it sets out to do. You will not have to fight hell or satan for her soul, Jesus has already taken care of that. What you must do however, is never, ever give up on her. For you, who are in Christ Jesus walk by faith (the substance of what you cannot see at the moment) not by your sight (what you see happening)!

 

Odds are that if your daughter is purposefully rejecting her upbringing in some form or fashion, then the way that she will spend her time will probably be heartbreaking and cause you disappointment in her. Nevertheless, find the value in her that Jesus sees and encourage her in humility and in love to the best of your ability. The Lord will take care of the rest. You just remember back to the days when you coached her T-ball team, went to her school plays, possibly homeschooled her and attended her soccer games when she was in High School, pouring your best into her life and know that there are still some things that you can do even now that she is in her twenties or maybe thirties, to show her that you are still wanting to invest into her life, because you care for her. To find those ways you need only to look to the scriptures where there, you will find what Jesus did as He spent time with many wayward people that He encountered even though He wasn’t even related to them, and imitate Him by being the kind of parent who will love her and let God be her judge and the Holy Spirit convict her heart, drawing her back to Him. Encourage her and never stop praying that one day as God fallows her heart and makes it tender, to receive His word through your love, that she will begin to seek God’s glory instead her own. When you read something in the scriptures that encourages you and helps you in a situation, pass it on to her. Write it down and send it to her. The best exhortation that you can give her is sharing positive examples of Christ’s joy in your own life. Don’t stress out and doubt yourself when you are trying to get the word of God into her heart, because each one of them is singularly powerful if given in your own brokenness. Just send them out one after another, and let the cumulative effect of your satisfaction and worship in God gather up in her inbox awaiting her to open and find them. God’s word is never proclaimed in vain, nor does it return void.

Remember, the real problem is that she does not see Jesus clearly, therefore you must help her see Him by living the kind of life that He would have you live and by doing so, will show her Christ. It is not a simple or immediate process, but the sins in her life that distress you and want to destroy her will only begin to fade away when they see Jesus as He actually is. For every unbelieving or wayward child, the details will be different. Each one will require parents to reach out in unique ways. What is not acceptable, however, is not reaching out to them at all. Because, the deepest concern is not your child’s actions and how she is living, but her heart condition! So don’t expect her to fall in love with God’s laws as a requirement for repentance and restoration. She must first see her sin as God sees her sin and then only will she be able to understand why God ask of her what He will.  If she has any inkling at all to be with you, it is God giving you a chance to love her back to Jesus. Treat her in a way that makes this clear. She probably knows, especially if she was raised in a Christian home, that what she’s doing is wrong and her conscience will lead her to God in the time that it will take. So never give her a timeline to come to Christ. That shall be between her and Christ; for she definitely knows how you feel and think about those things and doesn’t need them pointed out to her every time you speak with her. She needs to see how you are going to react to her evil. Your gentle forbearance and sorrowful hope will show her that you really do trust Jesus to bring her to repentance. Her conscience can condemn her by itself, it needs no other help. Mom and Dad ought only to stand kindly and firmly, always living in the hope that their wayward child is on their way home. Then like the prodigal father in the Bible, when your daughter returns, there will be time for rejoicing and partying.

Loving on you today,

Bren

YOUR EGO IS NOT YOUR AMIGO

satan will offer your ego the world. he will tell you and tempt you to desire the things of this world that is sure to have no eternal value or importance. He will even lead you to neglect friends and family in order to get them; and when you do, he will be there to whisper in your ear after you have been forsaken by them, that you are worthless and unloved and assure you that you will never achieve your heart’s desire unless you do things the way that he will deceive you to do them. he is great at telling you on a day that you need encouragement the most, that you are not good enough, nor perfect or beautiful enough, and he loves to cuddle with you in the lap of leisure, leading you away from hearing the truth, by saying things like "oh you owe it to yourself", "look how hard you work and all that you do", "you can worship God anywhere, any place", you don't have to spend your off time in some church somewhere, with a bunch of hypocrites, God understands", "Besides, you’re not half as bad as most of them are!" “Forget them, you and God have your own thing going” he will say to you. You see satan does most of his speaking to you through your low self-esteem or through your ego. That is why you cannot trust it!  Because no matter what you may think of yourself, your ego is not your amigo. Your ego is simply a false image of who you really are. It is a mask that thrives on approval wanting control and sustained by some type of power source, but it lives in fear of, reality. It is happing to folks all around us. We all experience it and that is why we can see it in others. People trying to project an image of someone that they want others to think they are, in hopes to win their friendship and give them the respect that they long to have.

Sweet friend, can I tell you something from my own experience about God? You can try everything and every wrong way, of fulfilling your desires by getting more of what you believe the abundant life is and offers you. You can subscribe to every notable magazine, website, blogs and even Facebook, where there are plenty of so called friends that will stroke your ego and say what you want to hear, and for a while, it will alleviate your guilt, only to return with a God-given purpose to stir you away from those wrong choices in your ungodly lifestyle. There is an abundance of information and friends that will help satan to build your fleshly ego and for a while, tell you how awesome you are. But, I can promise you this, that your peace and happiness will be short lived if those are the places that you are getting your ego stroked and seeking your guidance from.  For eventually, in the desert of your soul, surrounded by all the abundance of the world, at some point you will discover, that the things that you are seeking are things that are rooted in your flesh; and there is no good thing that comes from your flesh. When you downsize your life to where you can see clearly that your desires are misplaced and need to be divine desires and not worldly desires, you will find a spiritual shift that reveals a great truth to you; and that truth is knowing that Jesus is sufficient because He alone is enough. That in Him, is all that your heart seeks. satan tempted Eve in the garden by saying to her the same thing that he is saying to you, “surely God does not mean that you will surely die if you disobey and not listen to Him”. You, like Eve must decide what voice you will listen to, what source you will rely on as you seek God in your life. Even though you may not know it; it is God that you are seeking in everything that you are doing to find and have happiness in your life. It is God that you seek, ultimately!

 

Not everyone will head godly advice. However, they will be forced in eternity and confronted with what they did with the Truth that God had sent their way, to lead them to Him. But because of their own inclinations they chose to see God or even ignore God in their own way, on their own terms, they will find sooner or later, that their sin or what they call “a fun lifestyle” will only last for a season, then they will be held accountable for it. Romans 12:2  tell us "… do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." The only way that you will ever be able to see things God way and understand why He ask the things that He ask of you, is to renew your mind by knowing what God has to say about something in His word. He is not so far that He cannot redeem you out of what you are in right now, nor is His Son not eager to forgive and restore you to a place that you were created to be. They are waiting, your sin debts have been paid, go!                            

Loving on you today,

Bren