Daily Devotional For Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Good morning Southside. It is Tuesday. Hope your day is off to a great start. We are looking at what it means to follow Jesus. When you read the New Testament, you see how quickly the church started. First with 12 men who took Jesus up to be fishers of men (Matthew 4:19), then it grew to 120, and thousands were coming into the church as disciples. It wasn’t because of all of their seeker-sensitive buildings, because they did not have any. It wasn’t because they had customized lattes available for you, because they didn’t even know what a latte was. It wasn’t because they had screens and computers, because they were not invented yet. It wasn’t even because of their praise team – not there. 

So, why did the church spread throughout the Roman Empire under intense and intentional persecution by Rome? – It wasn’t due to the disciples, because most of them were martyred. It was due to the unnamed and unknown every day disciples that went out and made disciples. The only thing really impressive about them was their faith in Christ and their willingness to risk sharing Christ and making disciples. That is what is worth giving your time and support to today.

Today, the modern church spends millions building buildings for the already comfortable church attendee. Instead of multiplying by starting new churches, they just expand their own buildings to accommodate huge budgets and buildings for an already saved body of Christ. At Southside, we want to make disciples every day. We want to reproduce in the same way the early New Testament church did. Those early Christians took the Gospel all over the Roman Empire and started churches all over it. Those disciples did not just keep building and expanding in Jerusalem, they went to Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of their world. Does this sound familiar?  I hope so.

Why? Because that is what Jesus had commanded them to do in Matthew 18:19-20 and Acts 1:8. So, are you personally reproducing? Dawson Trotman was a disciple of Jesus. He was so committed to making disciples that he started a ministry called The Navigators (The Navigators) to do it. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 50 on Jun 18, 1956 when he attempted to rescue a drowning girl named Allene Beck. The website has some fantastic tools to help anyone make disciples. In his book, Born To Reproduce, he asks this:

“Men, where is your man? Women, where is your woman? Where is the one whom you led to Christ and who is now going on with Him? . . . How many persons do you know by name today who were won to Christ by you and are now living for Him?” (Source: Dawson Trotman, Born To Reproduce, p. 10).

If you feel guilty, that is not my intent. My intent is to spur you to consider the mandate and means Jesus gave us to make disciples. Just attend any local church and you’ll quickly see what is important to them. It’s typically their buildings, their budgets and their by-laws, but not their discipleship. And to prove my point: members will come in masses to discuss these 3-Bs but if you advertise a meeting for discipleship making, only a few, maybe will even show up. Why? It’s not important to them and it is not a priority for them.

So, the only question remaining to ask is this: are you willing to reproduce, to make disciples? In your heart, do you want to see Jesus give people His life because of you? If your answer is not quickly, “Yes,” then it is possible Jesus has never given you His life. When Jesus gives you His life, He transforms you and gives your His mission. They go hand and in hand. You can’t have one without the other. If you still insist you are saved, then, where does your life prove you believe that people cannot be saved except through Jesus? Where in your life is it visible that you believe people die and go to hell? If that doesn’t break your heart, your heart is hardened and cold. If you have a daily quiet time, there is no way you can do this honestly and not be moved by Jesus to make disciples. The Apostle Paul was so concerned that some in the church at Corinth were not saved, he wrote this in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (NASB).

If you say you do want to make disciples, but haven’t yet. Take some small steps to start. I would suggest the following resources:

•  Here is a link that provides a lot of resources from the Navigators to help you start this: Discipleship Resources. I would suggest you start where you are. If you have never done this, is it scary? Yes, but you’ll love the adrenaline rush as you experience Jesus using you to make disciples. How do you start? You select a few, 2-4 that are in your sphere of influence. Ask God to give you names. These may be Christians in your church or at your work or school or even neighbors. Just because they go to church does not make them disciples. It just makes them  church members. If you need additional resources, pastor and author David Platt has a great website committed to this: Radical. If you strictly want materials on discipleship, use this link: Radical Discipleship.
• Get some resources that help them read the Bible, pray and etc. and then meet weekly with them as a group. Always model what you expect. Let them see how you grow in your faith – how you ready and study the Bible, how you pray, how you memorize Scripture, and etc. New potential disciples are like children – they don’t know how to do this – so show them.
• Pastor and author Robby Gallanty. His web link is: Replicate. He has some of the best resources out there. His own church is based on replicating, duplicating and making disciples – not just being your everyday church. His church models the New Testament model as found in the book of Acts. Here is his story: 

Robby has served as Long Hollow’s Senior Pastor since 2015. He wasn’t always a pastor, though. For three years, he battled a drug addiction that ravaged his life. A $180 a day heroin and cocaine addiction forced him to steal $15,000 from his parents. After living without gas, electricity, and water for months, losing 8 of his friends to drug related deaths, watching 6 friends arrested, and completing two rehab treatments, Robby remembered the gospel that was shared with him by a friend in college and was radically saved on November 12, 2002.

Eight months later, David Platt, a seminary student and church member at the time, asked Robby to meet weekly for accountability, prayer, and bible study. For the next 2 years, David installed a passion for missions, expository preaching, and disciple-making in his life. He also encouraged Robby to go back to school to pursue theological education. Robby completed his Masters of Divinity Degree in Expository Preaching in 2007 and his Ph.D. in Preaching in 2011 from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Today, Robby’s gospel conviction and evangelistic zeal drive him to passionately “make disciples who make disciples.”

In addition to his leadership at Long Hollow, Robby is also the founder of Replicate Ministries and the author of several great books your staff at Southside have read: Growing Up, Firmly Planted, and Bearing Fruit. If you choose to buy these and read them, you read them in this order. Currently our Deacons are reading Growing Up, and it is our goal for our entire lay leadership team to read these books as well. Pastor Hunter might have these 3 books available.

Now, having read all these devotionals on what it means to follow Jesus, I hope you will follow Him and make disciples. Jesus is not going to ask you in heaven, “Well, how many church services did you attend?” He is going to ask you, “Who did you disciple?” I hope you will have the answers for Him that bring Him glory.

Assignment: In this devotional, you were given multiple resources that will help you duplicate, replicate and make disciples. Take some time to pray about this and then find the resources that work best for you. I personally like Robby Gallant’s and then David Platt’s. If you were to die today, would the Lord say to you upon your entrance into heaven, “Well done thou good and faithful servant?” (Matthew 25:21).

Scripture To Meditate On: 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (NASB).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, I want to have a heart that desires to replicate, duplicate and make disciples. I want Your passion for disciple making. I want to stand before You in heaven one day knowing I fulfilled your mission to me. Please help me do this. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly