Discipleship Is Spirit Led

In my last two posts (Excepting of course Tuesdays with Edwards) we walked through John 4:1-42, the account of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. What I want to focus on is how that passage teaches that discipleship is Spirit led. This passage shows three ways in which this happens.

First, we need to follow the Spirit’s leading in where we go to make disciples. As Jesus told this woman to first go and call her husband, that certainly teaches that we should first be making disciples at home. But this account also teaches that Jesus was led to go to Samaria. Sometimes the Spirit will lead us into places that we or others would not otherwise go to or think was a good idea to go to.

Second, we need to follow the Spirit’s leading in whom we should disciple. Jesus had followers that were upstanding members of the community like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. But to most of the moral and religious Jesus was often going to the wrong people.

He was often accused of hanging out with “sinners.” Some of these He made His closest friends and disciples. I don’t know any culture where sea faring fishermen are anything but rough and tough people. Matthew was a tax collector—a traitor and extortionist. There was Simon the zealot, a member of a volunteer militia who advocated the use of force against Rome. And there is this woman who is the poster child for who a good Jew should avoid associating with at all.

These were not people one would think God would want or use, but if we read Scripture honestly, they are the ones He loves to draw to Himself and the ones He works through the most.

And third, we need to follow the Spirit’s leading in what areas we work with those we are discipling. This woman at the well asked what in that culture was a provocative question, Jesus ignored it. She then opens the door to racial and political discussion by challenging the Jewish claim to Jacob’s well and to his ancestry at the exclusion of the Samaritans. Again Jesus ignores the question.

Just because we are given an opening, it does not follow that the Spirit wants us to take it. It is important when we are discipling people, especially when we are making new disciples and talking to people who are not yet following Christ that we don’t just go after every point.

This woman had a serious moral problem, one that Jesus picked up on and gently exposed. It stung to be so exposed, and so she changed the conversation away from it, and Jesus left it too. Was that an area that needed more work? Yes. But it was not where the Spirit was working in her at that time, so Jesus moved off it.

One of the things I have been learning is that while I might see a number of places in a person’s heart and soul that need addressed the Spirit is not always working where I want Him to be working. Trying to work conviction into an area that the Spirit is not working conviction is a dangerous thing. I need to work where the Spirit is at work in the people I am discipling, not necessarily where I want to be working. He knows best how to heal and save, I need to follow His lead. Following mine will only lead to pain and trouble.

Tomorrow’s post will wrap things up. Hope to see you back.