the church. There are children, men and women who need to be taught that this is what a plow is and this is what a plow does and this is how you use a plow. I am sure there are those in your own church and community who needs someone to come alongside them to teach them that this is who God is (a spirit - able …). There are plenty of people out there who need to be discipled. This is our call as Christians. This is one way we put our hand to the plow of the Lord.
providence and protection. Our lives look like a window or a storm door in a child who is learning to walk and looking outside at his siblings play. You can’t keep a clean window or storm door in a house with a small one! The same providence and protection. We are all like the book of Esther where God and someone to walk alongside us as we learned the Christian faith. Maybe it was a parent or grandparent or youth pastor or pastor or Sunday School teacher … or someone else. But, I am sure we all have that testimony of someone teaching us about God and His word. We all have that testimony of someone investing in us because of their love of God and love of us. They were like the older farmer who taught us that this is what a plow is … and this is what a plow does … and this is how you use it. They taught us to keep our eyes straight and to not look back. They placed their gnarled hand over our young hand on the plow and taught how to go forward. Praise God for those people! Praise God that He so loved you that He placed these people in your lives! Praise God that He so cherishes you that He didn’t leave you to chance or chaos. Rather, in working together all things for good, your heavenly Father gave you men and women who helped lead you to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus calls us to put our hands to the plow. He calls us to faithful disciple- ship. He calls us to disciple others. The Christian faith isn’t one that takes. It’s a faith of service. We are called to be servants of Christ - and of each other. The faith entrusted to us is a faith that comes alongside younger Christians who are existing on milk and help them grow and mature so they can take on the deeper food of the faith. Discipleship isn’t just about me being discipled. It’s about me, and you, discipling others. We are called to place our older and gnarled hands
over the younger hands of the Chris- tian who needs to be discipled in and to Christ.
Make no mistake, this can be a
hard call. God refers to us sheep for a reason! God’s people can be stub- born, mean and spiteful. They can be hard to lead. Yet, our great Shep- herd left the 99 to come after you and me, and we must be willing to do the same. We must put in the hard work of discipling through God’s word in faithful sermons, Sunday School les- sweat and toil with younger Chris- tians who do maddening things and seem to want the leave the narrow path as quickly as we can. We must be patient when they sin, and sin again, and then sin again - and then complain about the consequences wrought through their sinning. We must do this because Jesus has done this with us, and is doing this with us. has placed His hand over ours on the plow, and keeps on reminding us to keep our eyes straight and not look - dures our wanting to look elsewhere while He reminds us to stay on that narrow path that leads to Him. Jesus is right there, all along the way with Christian life alone. We do it with the very presence and person of Christ in His Spirit. His hand is over ours, His gaze directing ours, His words are guiding us in the right direction. As we take up this work of disci- pleship in our lives and in the lives of others, may we each remember to keep our eyes on Jesus, who is the au- thor and perfecter of our faith, who endured all things necessary for our salvation and growth, and this is His great joy to see us grow in Him. May the Lord continue to bless you as you grow in Him and as you come along- side those who need help with the plow of discipleship.
Reverend James McManus is the pastor of Bethel ARP in Winnsboro, SC. He is married to Beth and they have three kids - Maggie (14), Hannah (9), Patrick (5). He enjoys family, music, reading, and making funny videos with family for Facebook.
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