Page 62 - Discipleship Ministries Student E-Book

Satan does not want your disciple to “hear” God’s Word. They might respond in obedience. So, Satan
will do what he can to distract your disciple to prevent them from hearing. Sometimes we forget just
how powerful prayer is. We aren’t fighting against something imaginary. Our prayers are fighting against
spiritual battles that linger in dark places.

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms.

The power of prayer is so great it has the power to defeat the devil and his power over us. He wants to
destroy us, but God wants to bring us closer to Him. Prayer is our tool to win that battle. Prayer gives us
the strength and the faith to finish the race victorious.

If you really want to become a great discipler, the path is on your knees.

3. Be ready and prepared for a teaching event

Let’s say you invite guests over for dinner, but really don’t have time to fix much of anything. After all,
life is busy, and you really don’t have time to fix a nice meal. So, they knock at your door, you seat
them, and pull out a bag of potato chips to serve them. What would they think? Have you really served
them like you should?

Many teachers take only a few minutes to read over the Sunday School quarterly and get an idea of
what the lesson is about, then stand up and add a couple of jokes to the lesson to make it more
appealing. They go through the quarterly, read the verses, and make a few comments that happened to
touch a nerve with them as they read through it. In other words, they served their class some potato
chips for a spiritual dinner.

Teaching is hard work! To teach you will spend many more hours, sometimes up to four or five times
the teaching time in preparation. It should be evident to your disciple that you invested hours of time
making the passage of Scripture come alive in your life. You should have done a lot of work parsing out
the Greek words, understanding the culture, geography, the history, and all aspects of the passage to
fully give your disciple a spiritual feast.

4. Be creative!

When you sit down with your disciple, you may want to teach them a certain concept about an
important aspect of the faith. You have studied various passages and are
ready to TELL them what they need to know. But is telling them the best
approach? Perhaps showing them would be better?

Here is an illustration of this principle. Say you are a teacher at the local
school, and you want to teach your students how to build a cabinet. You
can tell them about the process of selecting materials, purchasing, cutting
up their materials, assembling the cabinet, and final finish. Do you think
after even going over the process several times, that any student in your
class could build a cabinet?

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