Our best attempts at discipling people can end up very religious. Our most sincere attempts can be sincerely wrong. If all we do is give people rules to live by, are overly harsh, demanding, confronting, condemning, or even, legislating how they should live, we are hurting people, not helping, not discipling.

I am not saying we should ignore or make excuses for sin. God never does this; and neither should we.

And, I am not saying we should ignore truth either. God has an extremely high standard for truth and integrity. It’s the life modeled by JESUS, and God says we should follow JESUS.

The best way to help people is by first keeping our own eyes on JESUSand then helping others do the same. It will change us, and it will change the people we are discipling.

We will save ourselves a lot of time and energy if we understand the greatest thing we can do for a person is to keep pointing them to Jesus.

Our deepest desire and prayer should be that we all would…

Fully and completely know JESUS
Find JESUS absolutely irresistible.
Be captivated by JESUS’ breathtaking beauty.
Fall more and more and more in love with JESUS everyday.
Draw close to JESUS.
Understand JESUS is all powerful.
Understand JESUS has overcome any problem we will ever have to face.
Lean on JESUS.
Depend on JESUS.
Trust JESUS’ every word.
Depend on JESUS for forgiveness and salvation.
Have hearts fully surrendered to JESUS.
Have hearts full of gratitude to JESUS.
Be fully alive with the life of JESUS.
Fully know the freedom we have in JESUS.
Cherish our relationship with JESUS.
Prioritize our relationship with JESUS.
Delight to spend time with JESUS.
Wakeup every morning with KING JESUS as our first thought.
Know that every morning, we get new mercy and fresh grace from JESUS.
Know that JESUS’ mercy is His loving kindness toward us in forgiving and saving us.
And JESUS’ grace empowers us to…
Live by the example of JESUS.
Live listening to the voice of Jesus, everyday.
Live obediently to the will of the Father, just as JESUS did.
Love others, the way JESUS loves us; deeply.
Be compelled by love to share JESUS with everyone in our world.

Read more about JESUS here