Sheen As followers of Christ, it is our ultimate calling to make disciples. But the truth is, it isn’t easy to take God’s call and make Jesus known. Along the way, we may face a lot of obstacles that can cause our faith to waver. Let me share with you our first story of “a heart that is good” for this year – a heart that perseveres.
God’s story in Rose’ life teaches and inspires us to persevere even how things may frustrate us. People and situations can disappoint us but we must never give up, and continue the race God has set before us.
The Passion Within
Way back in 2015, I was then a fourth year High School student when my classmate invited me to attend to Elevate, a Youth Service / Ministry of Christ’s Commission Fellowship Church. He described it as a “fun” gathering and shared how epic the UNITE (an annual gathering of youths from different satellites) is. I felt excited and curious what’s with Elevate so I gave it a try.
When I first attended with my classmate, I was kind of nervous since I’m an introverted kind of person. I’m not really good at socializing with other people. But to my surprised, the friendliness and the warm welcome of the people there made me feel at ease, which helped me easily converse with them. On that day as well, I was assigned to a Dgroup, a small group of people who meet regularly, study the word of God, and are accountable to one another.
Weeks have passed and I was still attending Elevate. I remembered the time when there was an upcoming event, and they gave us tickets to give our friends and classmates who we can invite to attend. My friends and I joined forces and shared it to everyone we knew would be interested. In the end, we got some of our classmates and even students that we are acquainted with from other sections to come. It was really a blast for us. Starting from two people, it turned into a dozen of youth attending Elevate.
When Challenges Start to Test the Faith
Unfortunately, as months passed by, I saw that our number was slowly decreasing. Until such time that there were just about a few of us left who were still gathering. Eventually, even my classmate who invited me, also suddenly stopped joining the youth service. I was saddened by this, but I still persevered to fellowship with other youths. There also came a point wherein my friends and I used to occupy two rows but before long I just found myself alone, surrounded by other peers.
Years later after joining Elevate, I decided to audition in REVERB (the music ministry of Elevate Taytay). By God’s grace, I got the privileged to serve Him through singing. Later on, I witnessed how some of my friends and classmates started to join and got active in the ministry. It was great to see that we are all serving God, using the talents and gifts that He has given us for His glory.
We are passionately serving the Lord and getting involved in the church. I’m amazed on how God has been transforming the lives of each and every one of us. We were once attendees who come, sit, listen and sing in every youth service. But now we are already part of the ministry who are working in and behind the scene. Some of us are part of the Praise and Worship Team and some are also hosting.
Being in a discipleship group for many years, I was encouraged by my former leader to take the challenge of discipling my own Dgroup. After some time, I accepted and started with just one member. Then it grew into three, and then four. But sadly, some of them have stopped attending the youth service. In three years of my experience discipling youth, many times they would always come and go. I would get to see them attend for about a couple of times, and then suddenly would stop fellowshipping for some various reasons.
There came a point in my life when I questioned myself as a leader. I started to doubt myself if I’m even an effective leader, rationalizing why they stop attending. Is it because God knew that I wasn’t effective or capable enough to handle them? Those kinds of thoughts rummaged my mind and I started to feel unconfident. Nevertheless, I kept on discipling. Not wanting to give up but always reminding myself that if I quit making disciples, it means I’m also giving up for the next generation. I must persevere.
Devotional: Here are 3 reasons why we need spiritual nourishment in facing tough challenges in our lives. Read it here.
Persevere and Never Give up
As a Christian, if you are really serious with your walk with Jesus, you shouldn’t take the Great Commission lightly, which is to make disciples and make Jesus known. I always bear in mind that it’s Jesus’ last words here on earth, which gives it a lot of weight. So, I didn’t stop there. I started to form a new discipleship group and reconnected with my previous Dgroup members. I began to disciple them once again. Now, I have a total of five members whom all I actively have communication with. But just like before, there are times that some of them seems hesitant to attend our Bible study. However, there are also a few who are still committed to fellowship.
God also allows me to realize that the quantity is not important. What matters the most is the quality of their relationship with the Lord and their pursuit for Christlikeness. I constantly remind myself that even if I only have one active member, I must stay faithful to that one. In the first place, I believe that I do not deserve this privileged. I can only disciple by the grace of God.
I am confident that God is at work even if I cannot see it. I may not get to understand why things happen in my life but that’s okay. Knowing that God is the One who is in control of it all brings me such great relief. We may not understand but He does, and for me that is more than enough. It gives me peace that I don’t have to figure it all out and try to search for all the answers. I know that I can trust God to take care of those things that makes no sense to me.
Persevere, never give up, keep on running, keep on serving, keep on planting seeds, keep on discipling, and keep on worshiping.
When I was invited to share my story, I was thinking hard and praying to God, “Lord, what’s my story?” He reminded me of how He has taught me to continue to persevere, even if others wouldn’t continue the journey.
rose ann borja
Let’s Not Get Tired of Doing What’s Good
It may seem sometimes that nothing is happening but know that God is always at work. So let’s not get tired of serving and worshiping Him. Just like what is said in the song Seasons by Hillsong Worship, “If You’re not done working; God, I’m not done waiting”.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - Galatians 6:9 NIV
For some reason, I was reminded of what Francis Chan has said in his book, Crazy Love. That suppose you are an “extra” in a movie, and you only have one scene where there are hundreds of people milling around. You patiently wait for that two-fifths of a second wherein you can only get to see the back of your head.
It would be crazy to think that the movie would be about you, right? In some way, we are the same. We think that this movie of life is all about us when it should really be about God. He is the main character not us. We only have a two-fifths-of-a-second-long scene to live, and knowing that we just only have that small amount of time in God’s story, the question is how will we make use of that two-fifth of a second? How will we make it significant? It’s my prayer that we’ll never get tired of doing what is good. Let’s not give up easily and continue to persevere in the race God has set before us.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:1-2 NIV
Rose Ann Borja is currently a third-year college student taking up Environmental and Sanitary Engineering. She has been actively leading her own discipleship group for three years now. She has also been part of different ministries in church such as stage designing, music, and prayer warrior ministry. Indeed, her passion in making disciples and making Jesus known shows a heart that perseveres.
Share Your Story
I know every one of us has a story to share. A story on how God taught you…
… to forgive,
… to be still amidst the storms of life,
… to be faithful,
… to be a loving and respectful spouse,
…to be a mom or a dad with unconditional and sacrificial love,
… and so much more.
Bless and inspire other people with your own story on how God is teaching your heart to be ..
THE HEART THAT IS GOOD!
You can send me a message on my FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/theheartthatisgood/
or reach me through my email :
theheartthatisgood@gmail.com
Share your story because your story matters!
