Discipleship Gone Bad

Sometimes it becomes too much and I get frustrated. Trying to help others come out of darkness.

I have come to the conclusion that some people don't want help. They say the words but they don't respond.

I have just experienced the deep backsliding by two different men I have spent in one case years trying to disciple and help. One man has spiritually and in the area I was trying to encourage him, that man has made the decision to go back to the life he had before, one of defeat, one of loss, one of downward spiral.

The other man who has been a multi year discipleship effort has failed and is gone completely back to his old ways.

I could blame a lot of things. I could blame the fact that the Church they attend doesn't recognize the power of the Holy Ghost. That these men sought out discipleship only anemically.

When I got saved I looked for growth anywhere I could find it. Nothing would stop me. I was discipled by the best because I sought out the best.

For them I am thankful.

For the two men I have now failed with I point to 1 Peter 2:

13They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.[e] 14With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. 16But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

17These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. 20If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit,"[f]and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."

I won't give up trying to help others, it's just that they are going to have to seek out what I can help them with and not the other way round.