Whenever Ken and I mentor a couple, one of the first things we encourage them to do is to read a chapter of the Bible everyday together and pray. His Word is living and active and changes you. It is important to be in His Word daily to remind ourselves how we are to live and who we are in Christ.
We, as believers, should be content, happy, and peaceful witnesses to the greatness of God as we choose daily to walk in the Spirit. The way that we live our lives should attract others to Jesus. When we love those around us and show them God's joy, they just may want what we have!
Joyless Christians don't do the work of God any good. Who wants that? If you aren't joyful, examine yourselves to make sure you are in the faith. If you have hidden sins, confess them to someone you trust who will pray with you and hold you accountable. Do everything in your power to walk closely with Jesus.
Join a good, Bible believing church. Attend regularly even if you don't agree with everything taught 100%. Get involved. Walk up to people and be friendly instead of waiting for people to be friendly with you. People are attracted to warm and friendly people.
Be committed to your church. Love others in spite of their failings. Be at peace with others. Be the maintainer of peace! If you have an issue with someone, go to them privately in love.
I love getting up first thing in the morning, reading a few devotionals, praying, and studying a chapter or two of the Bible. I love meditating on verses. I read the same verses everyday for a week so I really understand them and they go from my head to my heart.
I have a prayer list that I pray over every day. If I tell someone I am going to pray for them, I put it on my list and pray for them. God tells us we don't have because we don't ask, so ask in faith believing he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
Don't nag your husband to do this with you. Ask him once. If he doesn't want to do it, start praying that God will convict His heart about it. Then leave it safely in God's hands. He is mighty to do more than we can even ask or imagine.
What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Colossians 3:16
Logging you in...
Alison · 685 weeks ago
CarmenT · 685 weeks ago
Cathy · 685 weeks ago
daffodil568 26p · 685 weeks ago
Susan · 685 weeks ago
Have a blessed Sunday♥
Amy S · 685 weeks ago
Ken · 685 weeks ago
The basis of mentoring authority comes from the great commission. Jesus says all authority is given unto me, go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you … and I will be with you (Matt. 28:18-20). We as believers are commanded to mentor others, but of course mentoring requires a certain amount of life experience and success at following Christ as you cannot help others until you first help yourself. No one should be mentoring if their lives do not reflect a maturity in Christ and a walk in the Spirit. A perfect life is not necessary to mentor others, only a life that is pleasing to God, and is willing to be vulnerable and open with those who are being trained as to one’s failings and weaknesses.
Another basis for mentoring specifically for me is that the elders (older men) are to shepherd the flock of God. Each church has elders who are specifically chosen to lead the church forward and to administer the church and the sacraments, but these elders are not the only elders in the church. It is not unusually for a church to have a rotation of its elders and to be continually bringing in new elders who have met the qualification as elders onto the administrative team. There can be many elder type individuals in a church who are mentoring and teaching, and fulfilling the role of an elder (or “older women”) without being on the elder board of a church. Such men and women function under the authority of Christ and the authority of their elder board, even if their role is, or is not, specifically assigned by the leadership of the church.
It important to understand in this discussion that older men teaching younger men has been the primary mentoring model throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that such a model is not exclusive to Christianity or Judaism. The older men would regularly meet at the gates of the city to play the role of judge and jury and to mentor and teach the young men how to take over this role of being a wise sage when the time would come. So if the apostle Paul has but few references to men mentoring other men, it is not an oversight, but rather an issue so obvious to all that he would not have spent much time trying to establish its necessity. It is in fact an indispensable part of both Christianity and the ongoing life of any culture that the older men are training and teaching the younger men, and likewise the older women the younger women.
Finally, concerning authority in the Church and in our modern culture, one’s authority to teach is always limited to their ability to attract willing followers. A leader or mentor without followers is not a leader or mentor at all, except perhaps in title or in their own minds. Instead, a true mentor leader is one who others look to what they say and to their lives and find a sense of true authority in their words because they make sense and they powerfully address the needs of the one being mentored. Our desire is that our words, whatever they may be are not “our words,” but the very words that the Spirit of Christ wants that person to hear. Most of these words are actually words that Jesus has already commanded. Certainly we give practical advice that comes from our lives but when doing so we give these words as suggestions, not commands and try to regularly offer a Bible basis for what we advise. We are much stronger in our counsel concerning God’s Words than our own words, yet we recognize a certain benefit to sharing what worked and did not work in our own lives.
If one needed Lori and Ken to have a special degree or training to be qualified to mentor them, then they probably would not be a good couple or person for us to mentor. To make a disciple of Christ requires a certain bond of the person being mentored that the older Christian is indeed wiser, or at least more knowledgeable about the scriptures and life itself than they are, and a recognition that this person has something special to offer them. If this recognition is not readily apparent, the potential follower or learner should run as fast as possible to seek another mentor. The authority of the mentor comes from the willingness of the follower to follow and try out what is being taught, perhaps with a little skepticism, and yet with a true desire to learn and grow as a person and as a believer.
Ken · 685 weeks ago
Advanced Degrees and special training are terrific, and Lori and I have both, but they are nothing in comparison to the results of our lives, and family life, that comes from being sold out for Jesus and following his commands; and then in turn the results of what we and others can see in the lives of those we have had the privilege to mentor. Mentoring and discipleship is unfortunately a lost essential in most churches and the lack of mentoring can be seen in the broken homes, and lives of far too many Christians. Find a mentor who you trust and who you know is a true follower of Christ and has life experiences to offer you and ask them to be your mentor. If you chose to follow Lori’s wise counsel, terrific as she has lots of great things to offer. But it is always best to have a real live relationship with a godly older person who can deal with the specifics of your life and what troubles you most. So read Lori’s blog and go ask your church leaders who might be a good mentor for you individually, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (Eph 1:17), that we are to grow up in every way into Christ (Eph 4:15).
Bob · 685 weeks ago
Tiffany · 685 weeks ago
Tiffany · 685 weeks ago
Ken · 685 weeks ago
If you look at the scriptures in a global way you discover that from start to finish God relates to mankind by way of promises. God promises something and then delivers on his promise over and over again. God’s promises may appear slow in coming, but we wait for them by faith knowing that at the very heart, nature and essence of God is that He always keeps His Word and promises.
At times God’s promise are wrapped up in Covenants, or Legal and binding agreements that He makes with mankind. Numerous covenants can be found in the scriptures but the three best known and most critical to God’s work on earth are the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant.
The New Covenant was alluded to by God in many or all of His previous covenants as they gave the hope of a future redemption for mankind. The New Covenant is in fact the fulfillment of the promises made to Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even Moses. The promise of complete redemption.
The Abrahamic Covenant was unique in that it was a one sided covenant that contained one more promise of a Savior (Messiah). Unlike the previous covenants between God and man, God causes Abraham to fall asleep and He ratifies the Covenant (Treaty) with Abraham by passing through the severed animals alone, thus saying may He too be cut in half if He does not keep his promises. Abraham, contained in him the seed of all the future children of God, who would not be held accountable doing anything to meet the legal requirements of the Covenant, as only God Himself ratified it.
Move forward to God’s work with the children of Israel and you find that God makes a Covenant with Moses based on a conditional agreement that IF the children of Israel, the Jews, obey God they will receive God’s blessings and the promised land. If they do not obey Him they will suffer the consequences of a life without God’s protection, and furthermore His wrath and punishment as disobedient children. The story of Israel is a harsh story of many failures with a few successes, but a constant war of wills with the Children of Israel knowing the true God, yet not honoring Him as their God and Savior.
The story of the Jews so far does not end well, but fortunately the story is not over. For in Abraham, “all of the children of the world will be blessed, Jews and Gentiles. For out of the promise to Adan and Eve, out of the promises to Abraham, comes a Savior who will rule the world from Jerusalem. “He will be their God and they will be His people” is the repeated theme of the scriptures and all based on the promises and Covenants of God.
Jeremiah clearly speaks of the New Covenant that is to come when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
(Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV)
When Jesus appears as the Messiah and promised Savior, he begins His ministry with the Sermon on the Mount and turns the Old Covenant upside down on its head and begins to usher in a New Covenant. As the new Moses says that you cannot put new wine into old wine skins. The experiment of the nation of Israel of a Covenant based on works and keeping the Old Testament Law had utterly failed, not because of God’s failings, but because no man is capable of keeping God’s laws and pleasing Him in every way. Worse yet, apart from righteousness and holiness no man can see God or fellowship with Him. No man can walk and talk with God like Adam and Eve fellowshipped with God in the garden; and restoring this fellowship with mankind is God’s great desire.
But Jesus, the God/man, the promised one who would deliver not only Israel, but all mankind, the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant; this Jesus lived a perfect life and was sacrificed on the cross, just as the prophets had predicted long ago. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was marched to His death just like so many animals were sacrificed in the temple to appease the just wrath of God against disobedient children. The difference was that this God/man was indeed the perfect Lamb and by His death all who believe could now enter into the New Covenant, a Covenant written on our hearts and minds because we have the Spirit of God who lives inside of us.
Ken · 685 weeks ago
Jesus spoke clearly of the New Covenant in Luke 20:19-20 as it says, “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” We know this as the Lord’s Supper, and Jesus is pointing to a new way that God now deals with mankind by grace. Once Jesus died the promised salvation was once and forever delivered and fulfilled God’s many promises of redemption, not only mankind, but for the whole world.
The church functions now in the New Covenant and not the Old. We are not in the old wineskins of the law and do’s and don’ts with the impossibility of pleasing God by works, but instead in a New Covenant of the body and blood of Jesus where those who believe receive by grace the atonement and very life of Jesus. When God sees me, God sees not my sins, but instead the perfect life of Jesus. He is our substitute and the fulfillment of the old covenants.
So when one talks of the New Covenant they are referring to a new way that God relates to mankind through His promised One, Christ Jesus. Nothing more needs to be accomplished for those who believe so that they may stand in the presence of God. Not by our works, or anything we merited, but everything completed by God just as He promised when He walked through the ratification of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Now instead of worrying about do’s and don’ts the believer is to focus on his/her relationship with God and should desire to please God in every way because of His great love shown towards us. Can you imagine giving up your first born for anyone, let alone your worst enemy to be sacrificed on a cross? That is what God did, that while we were yet enemies, Christ died for us just as our gracious and loving Father in heaven promised. So who needs to worry about the Old Covenants and Ten Commandments??? We who are part of the New Covenant have a higher and more purposeful calling to become the children of God, heirs to all that God has created. We are Christ’s disciples and yet we are His brother as we live out the New Covenant that God has established in and through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hebrews 8:13: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
Tiffany · 684 weeks ago
Tiffany · 684 weeks ago
I'm trying to ask this without sounding disagreeable because I don't disagree...just curious and trying to understand. When you say nothing else has to be done, it makes me think "So can I just do whatever I want and not worry about God's judgement"? For example if a person does something evil they are still forgiven by God? Maybe I am misunderstanding this...
Robert Moon · 684 weeks ago
Jill · 684 weeks ago
Brit · 684 weeks ago
As far as you menoring others... I would personally have a mentor that is a Christian and has lived life than someone who just went to school and has a degree.
Lyli · 684 weeks ago
Kate · 684 weeks ago
pamela · 684 weeks ago
char72 44p · 684 weeks ago
Blessings,
Charlotte
Laura · 684 weeks ago
estella · 683 weeks ago