I have a good friend named Matt Cimone. Matt was one of the teenagers in my youth group years ago. Matt is an adventurer. When I first met him, he was returning from a year student exchange in Spain during high school. Later, while studying at the University of Toronto, Matt spent a year in Sierra Leone where he started a development ministry called Esther’s Echo which continues to educate young women in that country to this day. Matt longed to bring them out of horrific situations and to explore the possibilities of what they could become. Matt’s great passion however is space travel. As a child, Matt always wanted to be an astronaut. One of the great disappointments of Matt’s life was that because of eyesight problems Matt never qualified for that dream. So, Matt sought to do something else. Matt produced a documentary called Chasing Atlantis. He tracked the story of the space shuttle and included people like Bill Nye the science guy and all the Star Trek guys like Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, and folks at NASA. Matt also has a passion for astrophotography. The beauty of outer space is that it is an almost limitless opportunity for exploration. We haven’t even begun to explore it. That provides a picture for me of discipleship.
Discipleship in the life of a Christian is a holy hunger to explore the infinite riches of the glory of God. The finite longs to know the infinite. This Sunday, I have called our study of Acts 7:44-60, Chasing Glory. What Stephen reveals is that true discipleship isn’t settling down into religion but setting out in the life-transforming adventure of knowing the God who created us, redeemed us, and indwelled us. Discipleship is a passion to explore the glory of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Would you describe your Christian experience as an adventure? Do you have a passion to know God in all of His splendor?
Come as we see the difference between settling into religion or setting out on the adventure of discipleship!
