I lead a small group of men on Monday and Thursday nights. It is one of my favorite things to do right now. Over 20 men show up and participate each week as they attempt to grow in their faith.

Every time I facilitate a new group, God has a way of teaching me as I lead them. So far, with this group, he has reminded me that many Christians know the right thing to say, even when they are not doing it. The answers to many of my questions are the same; “We need to pray about it. We should be reading our Bibles. We all should have people to which we are accountable.”

These sentences are all true, but they have no practical connection to life. For example, when someone answers a question by declaring that we need to pray, I always respond in the affirmative. But I never like to let it stop there. I follow that statement by asking, “When do you pray?” Possibly, I inquire as to the nature of their prayers. “What exactly do you say to God when you pray about these things?” Another approach might be to ask, “And what do you hope to see as a result of your prayers?”

I have noticed that whenever I ask more questions, they stop in their tracks. They are used to simply giving an answer that sounds spiritual and then moving on to something else. As a Christian, it is easy to use the language of faith to deflect genuine reflection and participation.

Always remember, it is one thing to talk a good game, and it is quite another to play one. Just because someone knows all the correct answers, including you, does not mean you are growing spiritually. In fact, it might be a smokescreen to hide a lack of spiritual growth.

Why do I keep running into this person?

Have you ever thought that about someone? You see them at a school function. You run into them at Walmart. You might even notice them at a traffic light.

Perhaps they have always been there, but for whatever reason, you have noticed their presence in your life repeatedly. Sometimes, their name will pop up in conversations. Their social media appears on your feed every time you look.

What if these experiences were not random coincidences but rather small acts of providence to connect you to someone else? What if God, in his sovereignty, is using you to reach them with the message of his grace? What if you are the perfect person to minister to this person in the name of Jesus? What if you saw them as part of God’s plan for your life?

I believe God continually allows our lives to intersect with people to help us fulfill his purpose in the world. And maybe that person you are noticing is God trying to use you for his glory.

There is a Church that requires everyone who attends their gatherings to get involved in discipleship. They get a mentor, some required reading, and attend a weekly small group meeting. The leadership there makes it known that if you plan on joining their Church, you will participate in the discipleship program of their Church, or you will be asked not to return.

As you first hear this, I don’t know how you will react. I thought that this was a bit extreme, but I genuinely admire their determination to fulfill the Great Commission of making disciples. Then, I thought long and intensely about how I could enforce something like this in the community of Christians I lead. After all, when I look at their Church, the people seem so committed to the Lord. Perhaps forced discipleship is the way to go.

Then I realized something. The people who attend their Church long for that type of atmosphere. People have already vetted them before they choose to participate. In other words, the people who join their community come in with a Christian background and long for someone to help them grow in their faith.

Here is the harsh reality for all believers. If you want to become a spiritually mature follower of Jesus, the desire must come from inside of you. No one can “force” you to become a mature Christian. It takes you waking up each and every day and choosing to take up your cross and follow him. The reason that this Church is growing is because the people who attend already want someone to invest in them spiritually, and those who don’t quit or go somewhere else.

I wish I could implement some plan that takes total non-Christians, leads them to faith, and then grows them into mature believers without any flaws or failures. But Jesus told us the parable of the Sower in which a man goes out scattering seed on four types of soil, and only one of them becomes complete and produces fruit. Three out of the four soils do not do what the Sower wanted them to do. Be clear: in this parable, Jesus is the Sower.

No one can force you into discipleship that leads to spiritual maturity, no matter how hard they try. Transformation starts inside your soul.

What would happen if you did not read another book this week about faith and instead tried to apply yourself to doing one thing from a previous book you read?

Quite often, we keep stuffing more into our hearts and minds without doing what we already know to do.

There is a surprisingly good chance that you don’t need to know more, but rather, you need to do more of what you know.

I was in a discussion with some Church leaders, and they were talking about the faith required to lead a Church. I was young and arrogant, and I know that now, but I responded by saying something like this: “God would not have to show up here for weeks, and we would be fine.”

As you can imagine, their jaws dropped. They questioned me, “What do you mean?”

My response was equally direct. “Well, we have over $50,000 in the bank. And we are not planning anything that requires us to stretch ourselves spiritually in any way in the near future.”

Please hear me; I was not being critical. It was simply an honest evaluation from my experience in that Church and numerous others like it. They had money, they were comfortable, and they felt security aside from their faith.

I firmly believe that a Church should ask itself, “What are we doing that would fail if God did not show up this week?”

What projects? What outreach? What worship? What teaching? What mission expansion? What?

The Church community should be a place that leads the way in trusting God as we live by faith and not by sight.

Recently, I was in a discussion with my current group of Church leaders, and I asked them if we should still give away 50% of our offering on Easter to the children’s home like we usually do. Funds are tight, and we have few reserves in the bank at this moment. One of the leaders quickly piped up, “If we believe God is in this, then we need to do it.” Soon, everyone around the table added their vote of agreement. And so, we are going to trust God to provide all we need to do his work in both our Church and the places where we support others.

It is a scary thing to lead by faith, but as a Christian leader, it is the only place I want to be.

My new tool was not working properly. I tried several things to get it working, but it was to no avail.

I went and picked up the owner’s manual, and there was an entire section labeled “Troubleshooting.”

The section will list a problem and then a solution. Some issues may have multiple solutions. These pages offer the owner practical instructions on how to handle the difficulties they might encounter.

Sadly, the Bible does not offer a troubleshooting section. If something in your life is not working the way it should, then look up page 181 and find three things you can do to fix it. There are no “easy steps” to overcome whatever you are facing.

Yet, I encounter Christians regularly who come to me, tell me about a struggle they are facing, and then ask me to troubleshoot it. They are always disappointed when I tell them that the scriptures are not that straightforward. Some stories and passages help us gain an understanding of what God wants us to do in a general way, but there is little practical advice on how that might work out in your life.

My typical response to people is to have them read some section of the Bible, start praying for a solution, seek wise counsel, develop a plan that fits their personality, and pray some more before they act. The way to fix their issues is very rarely a simple answer; instead, it takes time to think, reflect, and draw close to God. And even then, it requires an element of faith as they move forward.

Unfortunately, the Bible has no troubleshooting section. Instead, it encourages us to spend a lifetime taking our troubles to God, seeking his will, and trusting that he will work even when we don’t see it.

Most of us can identify with the sentiment that we have two different people living inside of us.

There is the morning me and the evening me.

There is the hungry me and the well-fed me.

There is the tired me, and the rested me.

My reactions, emotions, and plans can vary greatly depending on which version of me you catch. The problem really starts to show when we allow this to slip into our faith.

There is the weekday me and the Sunday morning me.

There is the person around non-Christian friends and the one with Church people.

One goal for every believer is to move from being two different people into one unified follower of Jesus.

There is a group of believers that think the Church they attend is doing everything the most Biblical way.

I can appreciate their mindset; as a Church leader myself, I am also trying to follow the Bible in all that our Church does.

The problem comes when people develop a certain mindset about their community of faith. This is the belief that their group is “more spiritual” than everyone else. They might not say it out loud, but down deep, they feel the only authentic, true Christians they know go to their Church.

After all, their Church preaches through the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse. They have a discipleship program that gives people deep faith. Everyone who attends knows their Bible well, probably better than most Churches. They homeschool, have small groups, recovery programs, mission trips, and they never play games at youth group. They only use specific curricula for teaching and avoid certain modern translations of the Bible. They have a long list of things that set their community apart from all other believers.

One problem with this type of thinking is that it reflects the attitude of the Pharisees more than Jesus’s. The Pharisees claimed to be more spiritual than everyone else. They honored the Old Testament law and the traditions that supported it.

Jesus, on the other hand, had a group of followers who appeared to care more about position, made numerous stupid statements, denied their faith, and even betrayed their leader. They are a rag-tag group of fishermen, tax collectors, and zealots with questionable knowledge of the Old Testament.

And yet, that is the group of people Jesus uses to launch his Church and lead it into the future. They are the ones who will form the foundation for the Church, with Jesus as the chief cornerstone.

It is possible that in our efforts to please God and follow Jesus, we develop a Pharisaic spirit instead of the spirit of Jesus.

I spend an extraordinary amount of time discussing how to interpret the Bible correctly. The big word for this is hermeneutics. We must use proper methods to understand the scriptures correctly.

Recently, I was reminded that we also need to interpret people correctly. Author James Clear posted this last week.

“Spend today interpreting whatever people do in the most generous way. See if you feel better as a result.”

A minister on the staff of a large Church was told by their new lead pastor that they were required to have five people they were praying for who needed to know Jesus. They were to write the names down on Post-it notes and have them by their computers. This way, whatever they were writing or doing for the Church, they would be reminded to think of that lost person while they worked.

Then he realized he did not know five people who were not believers. He worked at the Church, and all his friends were there. As a result, he went to another staff member and asked for his advice. He was told that he should start by spending the next thirty days praying for God to give him a heart for non-Christians and eyes to see them.

Finally, he explained how this one event changed his life and ministry forever.

My encouragement today is similar. Would you be willing to pray this simple prayer for the next thirty days: “God, please open my heart and eyes to people who do not know Jesus?”

If my calculations are correct, as of today, you could pray for thirty days and then have thirty days to invite people to join you for Easter.

It is possible that the next two months could change your heart, along with someone’s life, for eternity. All you have to do is start with a prayer.