Surfing Discipleship - Part 2

2. Become Daily Devoted

• Titus 3:14
  
  • says we must devote ourselves daily to doing what is good so we may be provided with our daily necessities and not live unproductive lives. (paraphrased)
    
• this really comes with desire
  
  • devotion follows where our heart’s desires are
  • devotion is a commitment
  • devotion is a response
  • devotion is our obedience
    
• when we accepted Christ, we entered a constant growing relationship
  
  • NOT an inauguration party
  • leave that to the next president
    
• surfers have to swim everyday before they can surf
• disciples must devote ourselves daily before we can turn the world upside down
  

3. Take Your Faith Out

• Acts 1:8
  
  • “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
    
• our faith was never meant to for safe keeping
• faith is not what we obtain, but what must be shared
  
  • it is every believers responsibility to take faith to the none believer
    
• we will never learn how to reach the lost until we understand the lost
  
  • live in the world, but not of the world
    
• like the surfer who sits on his board getting the feel of the open water and the early forming of waves
• we must take our faith out into the world and get the feel of what we are about to encounter
  

4. Pursue Christ-likeness

• Philippians 3:10-14
  
  • 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
    
• discipleship is never said to be easy
• it is our attitude that must be set in place
  
  • put our attitudes to becoming like Christ
    
• growth is a direct result to effort
  
  • when we attempt we grow
  • our efforts my result in failure
  • our efforts might result in success
  • but, our growth will be measured by our effort
    
• we must become like Christ
  
  • humble
  • loving
  • selfless
  • be a servant to God
    
• learn that every step to a solid foundation comes from a gradual consistent growth
• like a surfer learning to ride a small wave, we might fall
  
  • BUT, it is not failure that makes us grow, it is what we do with that failure
  • learn how to ride the small waves first
    
• a true step in the discipleship process is to put a valiant effort into becoming like Christ

look for the final steps of the discipleship process...will be published in a couple of days