Enter Incarnate Identify Accept
Over the last eight weeks, we’ve been examining a biblical model of discipleship that I call Love. Know. Speak. Do. These are four essential elements, or actions, that you want to pursue simultaneously as you seek to function as God’s instrument of change in another person’s life.
To conclude the summer (at least, summer according to the Northern Hemisphere calendar where I live), I want to go through each element one more time.
LOVE. Know. Speak. Do.
Love. Know. Speak. Do. are simple, one-syllable words. But contained within Love is another four-part model: Enter. Incarnate. Identify. Accept.
(Don’t try saying that ten times quickly!)
As you seek to Love another brother or sister whom you are discipling, you want to:
- Enter the person’s struggles
- Incarnate the love of Christ
- Identify with suffering
- Accept with agenda
Enter the person’s struggles: Far too often in personal ministry, we are actually impersonal! We focus on a problem and miss the person in the middle of it. The focus of God’s work of change is radical, personal transformation.
Of course, helping someone change their situation, location, or environment may be occasionally necessary. But even when it is, the deeper struggle of the heart is what God primarily calls you to help the other person change.
Incarnate the love of Christ: As Christ’s ambassadors, it’s not just what we say that God uses to encourage change in people; it’s also who we are and what we do. Jesus said, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves” (John 14:11).
Personal ministry is not scheduling sessions of talk therapy. It’s so much more than confronting people with the truth and calling them to obey. We are not only God’s spokespersons; we are examples.
For example, your willingness to forgive someone who has sinned against you, or your spirit of joy in suffering, may be just as powerful to the person you are discipling. Yes, always point them to the Word of God, but the testimony of your life as you live out obedience to Scriptures can be equally as instructive.
Identify with suffering: As Christ’s ambassadors, you are a sufferer who has been called to minister to others in pain. Suffering is not only the mutual experience of human relationships, but one of God’s most useful workrooms.
Hebrews 2:10-12 reminds us that we are in the same family as Christ, and that we seek comfort and help from One who understands our experience. It’s your role to suffer alongside those you disciple as they suffer, reminding them that they are loved by a Suffering Savior!
Accept with agenda: Since God’s purpose is that we would become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), change is his agenda. As we offer people humble, patient, gentle, forbearing, and forgiving love, we must never communicate that it is okay for them to stay as they are.
Ambassadorial discipleship refuses to condemn, but we also refuse to condone. God’s acceptance is not a call to relax, but a call to work. The grace God extends to us is always grace leading to change. His acceptance is not the end of his work; it is the beginning!
So, as you Love, love by entering the struggles of the heart; love by incarnating the presence and character of Christ with more than just words but also godly behavior; love by suffering alongside those who suffer and being a window to the hope and glory of God; and love by holding yourself and the other person to an agenda of change.
Relationships built this way become environments where God’s work of transformation will thrive. People will be renewed, restored, rebuilt, and refined.
This type of discipleship is our calling until we are fully conformed to the image of God’s Son.
A Prayer for Today: Lord, please help me to build relationships with others in my life in a way that your work of transformation will thrive. Help me to love others by entering into their struggles of the heart. Help me to incarnate the presence and character of Christ with more than just words but also godly behavior. Help me to love by suffering alongside others in pain, pointing them to hope and glory found in you. And help me to be an instrument of change in the lives of others so that I can be a physical manifestation of your grace. In Jesus’ name, amen.
God bless,
Paul Tripp
Discussion Prompt for Children:
What do you think it could look like for you and our family to be the kind of people God uses to help make others more and more like Jesus?
Reflection Questions
1. Why do you think it’s so easy to focus on a problem in someone else’s life and miss the person in the middle of the problem? Why is God more interested in personal transformation within the heart of a person and how might that focus alter the way you speak into another person’s life?
2. Why is effective ministry in the lives of others something that’s not just about what we say to others, but who we are and what we do as followers of Christ? How are you living as a real-world example of God’s grace and why is showing that grace to others so important?
3. In what specific ways has God allowed you to suffer? How have you invested that suffering in a way that is able to connect with and encourage others in your natural circle of influence who are also suffering? Why is it always crucial to remind ourselves that we have a suffering Savior who identifies with our pain?
4. As we offer people humble, patient, gentle, forbearing, and forgiving love, why should we never communicate that it’s okay for them to stay as they are? How could a lack of communication toward them be unloving? Why is God’s grace always a catalyst for change within us? How is God calling you to be a change agent for him in the lives of others?