December 10 - And So On and So On

 Read today’s texts first: 2 Timothy 1-4

MAXIMize YOUR DAY

Lead 1 person to Christ a year, discipling them to do the same, and we’ve saved the world in 1 generation.

Those of us who lived through the big hair era of the early 80’s will likely remember the famous Faberge commercial. Heather Locklear loved the shampoo so much she told two friends about it, and they told two friends, and so on and so on and so on. The split screen effect illustrated the incredible compounding of word-of-mouth advertising (check it out on YouTube).

Faberge was simply recycling the genius of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). In our reading today, Paul gives his version of the G.C. to his protégé Timothy: 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 (2:2). That one sentence includes four generations in the chain of discipleship. It was this simple relay of faith from his grandmother Lois to his mother Eunice to himself that eventually led to Timothy becoming pastor of the influential church of Ephesus (1:5).

Do the math of spiritual multiplication.  If one person led another person to Christ and discipled him to do the same thing, and then repeated that every successive year, in 33 years we would see more than 8.5 billion people saved, more than the world’s current population (and not counting the 2.5 billion Christians on planet earth right now). In other words, the world would be reached in less than one generation. This is simply astounding - a simple process with profound results!

“Lord, lead me to the next person I can introduce to you and then teach them to do the same with others. The good news of what You have done for me is too good to keep to myself. I want to tell my friends who can tell their friends - and so on and so on and so on.”