“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
I have contended for several years now that the discipleship model Jesus gave us has been lost in the mainstream Church and we are witnessing the harvest of that today from our teens all the way up to those in the 20 – 40 year old range.
My son and I traveled to Paris Kentucky at the end of summer in 2020, to visit the historic site of Cane Ridge Revival. Within 30 minutes of leaving that location, Holy Spirit took me into a vision and told me when I returned home, I was to begin discipling individuals in the discipleship methods of the Lord.
At first, I said Lord I will do just that, but then I asked Him “What does that look like?” After He explained this, I mulled it over for a few hours, and then at our next gas stop I penned the following down:
“A Discipleship Ministry Dedicated to Training up Mountain Moving Disciples”
Transactional, Transformational, Reformational, Discipleship.
Reviving the relationally centered discipleship methods of Christ our Lord. Transactional in that we invest our lives (not religious programs) in others as the Lord invested His life into ours which births a transforming nature of the new birth (New Creation) which starts in the heart of Christ in us and begins the supernatural growth of the inward to that of the outward.
From there we see that when we allow Holy Spirit to use His Spiritual authority over the way we act and think, will birth a reforming (Reshaping) of who we have been purposefully reborn into, to that of a matured son or daughter with a destiny of becoming just like our Messiah and King, Christ our LORD.
Thus, we have been reborn of the Spirit into the original image, created in the very image of Father, Son, and Spirit.
So to sum up the process of Christ-like discipleship ministry: The whole purpose and foundation are that of training up disciples in the same Spiritual pattern that Jesus used in discipling His disciples; pouring everything (transactional) the Father poured into Him into the disciples, which caused an inward “transformation” which then sparks the new birth (New Creation) in the individual, which then manifests an outward Re-formation to where having gone through a Spiritual metamorphosis process, they end up looking and acting just like Jesus.
For thus has the LORD said to every man of Judah and of Jerusalem, break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. (Jeremiah 4:3)
Now, when you throw Jeremiah 4:3 into the mix, you get a deeper meaning of what Jesus meant when He gave the parable of seeds in Matthew 13:1-23 to understand that true Biblical discipleship is a patient process, yet when done in the manner for which our Lord discipled His disciples the harvest can be world-changing.
“We are coworkers with God and you are God’s cultivated garden, the house he is building” (1 Corinthians 3:9)
Bill Johnson said “I am not concerned with building big Churches, I am invested in building Big disciples”
This is the heart of the Lord, to disciple Mountain Moving Disciples, and it should be that same desire of every Congregation. Instead, the majority of the modern American Church focuses on building bigger, and bigger, and bigger churches with multiple campuses, while at the same grossly missing the mark of discipleship.
Critics who are fans of these religious enterprises defensively claim that isn’t true. Yet the harvest we are witnessing in our nation amongst the 18 to 40-year-olds begs to differ with that assumption, if it were not true, we would see beautiful Kingdom fruit being manifested in the lives of radically transformed individuals, possessing the likeness of our Lord.
Many incorrectly view the huge church model as a validation of the founder’s calling and ministry, which is steeped in world philosophy, which in turn would view the ministry of our Lord, going from several thousand to just 12, as a complete and utter failure. The truth is Jesus never tasked us with building Churches, whether big or small, He clearly stated He would build the Ekklesia (Matthew 16:18), and we are to make disciples (Matthew 28:19).
Last Sunday Night while relaxing I decided to get a brief update on the war in Israel. In the clip that I watched a military strategist was explaining that in the weeks leading up to the siege into Gaza, the IDF had strategically staged its military forces in a staging area. As soon as I heard the word staging area Holy Spirit began speaking to me.
He said that is exactly what the Father has purposed Me to do with the Ekklesia. For the Lord’s ekklesia was never purposed to be a warehouse of saints. It was purposed to be a staging area of the Lord’s army, where they are gathered, given assignments, and sent out to expand the Kingdom via Spiritual warfare. The day of warehousing the saints is coming to a close.
He went on the say “I AM” directing My oils of anointing onto those families who are purposed to serve the King, His Kingdom, hungering for His Righteousness, not their own.
I am not speaking out against mega Churches although they do eat up most of the Lord’s resources in order to keep the religious machine’s ability to stay afloat. Whereas, using military terms, smaller groups of spiritually trained elite forces respond more quickly and covertly get into areas and accomplish some very big.
Then last night He began speaking to me about the parable of the seed in light of Jeremiah 4:3, and 1 Corinthians 3:9 and the need to disciple individuals in the method Jesus used, to cultivate the hard soil they come into the Body with, losing it up to become good soil.
And when we look at the verse in Jeremiah, we are the soil as well as though whom we are called to disciple, even as He had patience with us so much, we have patience with them. I don’t know if any of you have made a garden, but it can be labor, to say the least. But with work, you can prepare the ground. However, the reason you do not want to plant in an area with thorn bushes is that it can be very difficult to rid the soil of their seed.
Even rocky soil or dry soil can be difficult and time-consuming, however, if Holy Spirit directs you to take on hard cases, those who are difficult to disciple, you can trust that He will give you the grace to do so. Remember, we would not need a comforter if we weren’t going to be called into some uncomfortable situations.
This is the reason that patience is needed, but we must understand the spiritual principles of cultivating the soil of the culture. For whatever reason, the Church to a large degree has done a very bad job of that and in some cases, they have failed, whereas the culture of the world has greatly influenced them.
I live in a city filled with mega Churches, and their whole system is based on a worldly business model, from the marketing to the worship (performance-based). I know their members, or should I say fans of these religious institutions don’t like to hear that, but I see very little fruit of the Kingdom in this city. High crime, high divorce, child sex trafficking.
There are some that are somewhat new, but others that have been here for over 20 years. It took approximately 30 years for the first-century Church to turn one of the most paganistic idol-worshipping cities of that time, Ephesus, into a city burning with the flames of awakening and reformation. There is no indication of that happening in this city, and it grows worse by the year.
If we are to be honest, we must admit that the Church has done a terrible job at making good, healthy, tilled soil for seeds to fall on and have an actual chance to grow here. It has been way more concerned about its appearance and ability to fill its seat in order to receive the money to keep the engines of its religious machines running. And they’ve done this at a very high cost, to our families, cities, and nation.
They say they want a true Biblical revival to come to the Church, but they deceive themselves and remain selfish. A true Biblical revival would tear down the religious doctrines, and dismantle their man-centered leadership and such a revival would move the people into a righteous hunger to desire the authentic Kingdom more than the performance-based dead religious institutions led by the American idolized celebrity preachers that scatter this nation.
I hear Holy Spirit saying that Heaven is seeking a generation that comes to know Jesus like those in the first century, who will willing to face death just to be in an intimate relationship with their Lord. To see a burning people whose lives spark a revival within the mainstream Church, that comes out of their spiritual complacency and religious dogmas to carry those flames into every mountain of influence in our nation sparking a nationwide awakening that birth a nationwide Spiritual re-formation. And then carries those flames throughout the nations.
What I keep hearing as I tune into the frequencies of Heaven is that we are in a very critical urgent hour. The enemy has made great advances in spewing his evil doctrines throughout our cultures, strongmen are currently guarding the gates of influence in every nation. The call to the Remnant is to begin to strike with precision Spiritual prayer missiles so as to demolish these strongholds, to bind up these strongmen and retake the gates and occupy them to the Glory of the Lord.
The Father is so emphatic about this that He has sent His Angel Armies to assist His Ekklesia in this hour with the commands released from the courts of Heaven:
“Now is the time to launch a global offensive military strike to begin bringing the nation of the world under the dominion authority of King Jesus.”
First, we must remember that judgment does start in the house of the lord, we need to make room for His Apostles to establish the judgments of the courts of Heaven that the Father is releasing through His prophets in this hour. And we will know (rightly discern) that they are the judgment of the Father for even though they will be painful for a season they shall be wrapped in His love.
As well we must be totally surrendered to the governing authority of Holy Spirit, even as He judges our hearts as to what is of the Father and what is not. I can tell you from personal experience, that this will cause a place where if the flesh is still ruling within us, to be humbled and ultimately bow to the Lordship of Holy Spirit.
Yet we must surrender to this process if we want to be used by God in this hour, for we, like Jesus, must not have any place in our lives where the enemy can have influence, we must allow Holy Spirit to seek those places out so that we can lay them at the altar of the Lord and give Him permission to occupy those places. And I can’t emphasize this enough, we must allow the process of being consecrated under to the Lord have its course. As this opens wide the door of His sanctification.
Now, while the urgent message of returning to the methods of discipleship as taught by our Lord is clear, one of the main issues that He has shown me is the need to realize that in discipleship the invitation of intimacy must first be opened by the discipler. We must be willing to make ourselves completely vulnerable to those we are discipling. Just the thought of this can be very scary. Yet, if we look closely at how Jesus made Himself emotionally vulnerable to His disciples, we will see a potent spiritual weapon.
We know the enemy is aware of this as he has tried to corrupt this to turn people away from it. He was done so through to perversion of many who have taken advantage of those entrusted to them either emotionally or sexually or both. I can hear the Lord calling us to be the generation who unseats these spirits of perversion and walks in holiness with purity of hearts and motives. That is why it is so vital that we must ask Holy Spirit to baptize us in His FIRE.
Are we willing to pay the cost of being the generation who returns to discipling this generation according to the methods used by our Lord and His disciples? Are we ready to be hated and ostracized and made fun of by the world and the Institutional; man-centered Church?
I am more than confident, having spent time with Holy Spirit in the scriptures that when we start to make disciples Biblically, we will tear down societal structure and ultimately make the Remnant look like some sort of fanatical crazy Jesus-loving cult.
To actually be a Spiritual family of radical lovers of Jesus that lives together, who creates and runs businesses together, who adopts hundreds of children and even opens homes for them and establishes whole communities of faith-filled believers who hunger but for the King, His Kingdom, and His Righteousness.
After all, that is exactly what happened to the first-century believers who turned the known world upside down with the Gospel message of Christ and His Kingdom.
~Russ G. Welch
A.K.A. WindWalker
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Radical Disciples - A Remnant Revolution 