““Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and puts them into practice – I will show you what he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep, and laid the foundation on bedrock. When a flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the person who hears and does not put my words into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against that house, it collapsed immediately, and was utterly destroyed!” Luke 6:47-49 NET https://bible.com/bible/107/luk.6.47-49.NET
The reason so many in our churches are imploding and confused, particularly among our young people, is explained in Jesus’ words. Depression, suicide, gender confusion, sexual dysfunction, and race obsession all stem from God’s people hearing God’s word but not putting it into practice. The increasingly small doses of Scripture preached, and the total lack of personal consumption provides little foundation for those who claim to be Christians for standing against the onslaught of God’s ways by the media and the university. The daily personal discipline of Bible reading for the daily personal exercise of obeying Christ in the world, the mission of which is to win people to Jesus and help them to grow in their faith, is sorely lacking and absent from the ordinary Christian. This failure to exercise God’s commands makes us weak, lazy, and unproductive in God’s work, which is what we see in our culture today. Our culture is in a moral collapse, while most people still say they believe in God because the believers are not true disciples of Jesus. A disciple listens to Jesus and then obeys Jesus. The mission of Jesus is the purpose for the true disciple of Jesus. Disciples are not looking for an identity or a purpose for living. Their identity is as a servant of Christ whose purpose is to glorify Him on earth as He is glorified in heaven by building His kingdom upon earth through evangelism and discipleship. Disciples are disciplined followers of Jesus focused on the word of God to do the will of God for the glory of God. Too many in the church are unaware of this requirement for being a follower of Jesus.
