03. God Is Accelerating.
God Is Accelerating
Article 3 | You Were Made for So Much More Than This
What if you spend your remaining years watching something you were called to help accomplish?
You read an encouraging missions report.
You hear about people coming to Jesus.
You say, “Praise God!”
Then you return to your plans.
But what if that report is an invitation?
What if God is showing you where you could put your experience, relationships, time, and resources to work?
Are you in it, or watching it?
In the first article, we asked what your remaining years are for. In the second, we confronted the danger of burying what God has entrusted to you.
Now lift your eyes. There is a harvest.
Movements are multiplying movements.
Disciples are making disciples. Churches are planting churches. Leaders are equipping other leaders. And established movements are helping the gospel take root among other peoples and in other places.
The 24:14 movement network reports this multiplication across cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries. Entire movements are helping start other movements.
Think about what that means.
Someone hears about Jesus, believes, and begins learning to obey Him. They share with their family. Others believe. A spiritual family forms.
Those believers learn to help another household discover Jesus.
Over time, leaders emerge who carry that same pattern into another community, and eventually across boundaries to people who have never heard.
The person receiving the gospel becomes someone carrying it forward.
We see that pattern in Acts:
“But the word of God grew and multiplied.”
Acts 12:24 WEB
And Paul instructed Timothy:
“The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit the same to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
2 Timothy 2:2 WEB
Paul. Timothy. Faithful people. Others also.
Every generation receives something it is responsible to pass on.
Where could you fit?
Some of us hear about movements and immediately picture someone younger, living overseas, speaking another language.
But consider the doors already within your reach.
You could gather a few adults and learn to make disciples together.
You could receive training, put it into practice, and eventually help someone else do the same.
You could build a faithful relationship with a disciple-maker who needs prayer, encouragement, and someone who listens.
You could use your professional skills to meet a practical need.
You could help provide resources that enable a local leader to reach the next community.
Some opportunities involve travel. Others begin around your table or through a conversation on your computer.
Your next assignment may be closer than you think.
Retirement may give you room to serve in ways your working years never allowed.
Years of managing people could help you encourage a developing leader.
Years of teaching could help you ask good questions and help someone practice.
Years of walking through hardship could help you stand beside a discouraged servant of Jesus.
Even your willingness to keep learning could open a door.
You do not have to know your entire assignment before taking the first step.
Jesus told us what to do when we see the harvest.
“The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:37-38 WEB
Pray for laborers.
And as you pray, make yourself available.
“Lord, where do You want me to work?”
“Whom could I help?”
“What have You entrusted to me that could serve Your harvest?”
Our desire to help finish the Great Commission by 2033 should shape what we do with the years immediately before us.
It should reach our calendars.
Our conversations.
Our giving.
Our willingness to learn and obey.
Watching multiplication can inspire you. Participating will require something of you.
It may cost an evening each week.
It may interrupt a comfortable routine.
It may mean practicing something unfamiliar, accepting coaching, or persevering when progress is slow.
That is where availability becomes obedience.
Your assignment this week
Set aside thirty minutes. Ask God where He wants you to participate in making multiplying disciples.
Then write down:
- One ability or resource you can offer.
- One person you can contact about serving.
- One action you will take within seven days.
Make the call. Begin the training. Invite the people. Arrange the conversation.
Take a step someone else could recognize as obedience.
When you hear what God is doing, will you have a report to admire, or an assignment to embrace?
Want to go further?
All ten Zúme discipleship lessons are on my site, free, with the video and the same teaching notes I use when I train leaders in person. Take them on your own, take them with a few friends, or join me live on Zoom and I will teach them to you face to face. When you finish, tell me and I will coach you personally.
Start the ten lessons: https://internationalafricanmobilization.com/training/terrys-zume-teaching-series/
Join a live training: https://zume.training/join-a-training
Join Zúme with Terry: https://zume.training/join-a-training
Next Steps sign-up: https://airtable.com/appUh4Y3McdFcQ8Xg/pagCyMWEWZbPNlyH5/form
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ddWYTzMNVY
Terry Ruff