{"id":41,"date":"2014-05-17T18:36:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T18:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=41"},"modified":"2019-03-05T14:11:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T21:11:44","slug":"when-will-we-be-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m not ready for that."},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A friend of mine was leading some men through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navpress.com\/Ways-Alongsider-Growing-Disciples-Life2Life\/dp\/1612913113#sthash.RJnHEeEF.dpbs\">Ways of the Alongsider<\/a>, a bible-study from The Navigators that teaches folks how to come alongside others in their spiritual journeys. At some point, one of the men said, &#8220;I get it! You&#8217;re asking us to share the gospel with people and when they believe, help them grow in the faith so that they can repeat the process.&#8221; My friend said, &#8220;Yes. Of course.&#8221; Then the man said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not ready for that yet.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">I can think of a number of comeback responses:<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<ul>\n<li>If you&#8217;re not ready now, what are you doing to get ready? Luke 12:47, 48 is clear:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div style=\"color: #000000; padding-left: 30px;\">And that servant who knew his master&#8217;s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div style=\"color: #000000; padding-left: 30px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Are you less ready than Matthew when he was called in Luke 5, who immediately threw a dinner party for his unsaved friends?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Are you less ready than the Woman at the Well in John 4 who immediately went and invited her village, filled with people who probably didn&#8217;t even like her, to meet Jesus?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Are you less ready than the demon-possessed guy in Mark 5 who asked Jesus for more training, but whom Jesus sent to his home town to tell his story?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">It is chilling that our allegedly bible-believing churches are filled with people who are willing to admit they&#8217;re &#8220;not ready&#8221; to do what Jesus has clearly asked us to do, aren&#8217;t doing anything to get ready, and are allowed to be members in good standing without even being challenged.<\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #000000;\">I find that most people in most churches will be &#8220;ready&#8221; after they&#8217;ve had &#8220;one more course.&#8221; But it&#8217;s always one more course. No wonder the harvest is still plentiful and the laborers are still few.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine was leading some men through Ways of the Alongsider, a bible-study from The Navigators that teaches folks how to come alongside others in their spiritual journeys. At some point, one of the men said, &#8220;I get it! You&#8217;re asking us to share the gospel with people and when they believe, help &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=41\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I&#8217;m not ready for that.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-F","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}