Discipleship on Display

My Journey of Faith Part 4

Donald Perkins Missionary to Lepers in Sudan

Discipleship on Display is Never Worldly

In John 2:15 the Apostle John tells us, "Do not love the world," and the world in Greek is kosmos or something ordered or an ordered system, often referring to the philosophy of this world that comes from Satan. However, it is also the word from which we get the term "cosmetic" or used to treat the face as an adornment. It is to pretend you're something that you're not. Christians are at their best when they are transparent, authentic, and unpretentious.

Discipleship on Display Exercises Accountability in Love

The years we spent at Elohim Bible Institute were formative for our hearts in the Christian faith because we had excellent examples of how to live our lives. When Mr. Perkins preached a sermon as he did on occasion, you could feel the flames of hell licking at your feet. Oh, I know how we are told to preach the love of God without a mention of hell. However, what does the love of God mean if there is nothing from which to be saved? 

Donald Perkins was a man from whom I felt a serious type of love. He was concerned about the gospel and pleasing Jesus Christ, and because of his passion for the truth, I knew he loved me. 

One night, as Chapel was about to begin, I noticed Mr.Perkins approaching the front. Something was wrong, and I could feel it just by his demeanor. Usually, he carried an air of joy, a contentment that few men these days seem to possess. Standing at the pulpit, he asked the student body to please stand. Remember, these are not young college kids but adults with children or older. He then asks everyone who voted today to please sit down. There was dead silence as everyone tried to see who was sitting without looking like it. I saw one person sit down. He then proceeded to have those remaining standing to sit. He then proceeded to preach a sermon, a title I will always remember: IT IS SIN WHEN A RIGHTEOUS MAN FAILS TO ACT. 

Discipleship on Disciplay is Always the Sincerest Form of Love

This sermon was not delivered by a pastor trying to get his members to grow the church. He was not talking down to us or raising some political consciousness. At the voting booths that day, there was a town amendment, which gave two options: one to reject pornography and the other to allow it. The vote did not carry, and porn was now acceptable. That day, the entire student body, minus one, left the school with our tail between our legs. Mr. Perkins did not say one harsh word, and he did not put us down, but he did raise the standards that God set for His people, and we all came woefully short. We did not please God that day, and we all knew it. 

Discipleship on Display is Always Transparent

Another thing that became subtly vital to me that day was church accountability. In the future, that truth, buried but not too deeply, would open the door of my understanding to raise the bar on the vital necessity of transparency in the church. Living unlike a Christian all week and then dressing up on Sunday and pretending to be different from the world when thinking and acting like it would become unacceptable in the future.

When God poured out His Spirit on the Gathering on Pentecost, He continued for several decades, drawing multitudes to Himself. The Gathering (church) was not the world as usual; they were completely different, and they sold what they had to meet the needs of others. They read the Old Testament with an understanding that made love, self-sacrifice, prayer, and fasting the way of life that it was meant to be. For the previous 1,500 years, Israel was a religion of phonies, and only the remnant was authentic in their devotion to God. Jesus' words as He closed His sermon on the Mount indicate the broad way that leads to destruction as nothing changes from Israel to the Church.

Only an authentic Christian is Discipleship on Display.