If at any given time in our life we are not making disciples, are we disobeying?

I suppose there are many different answers to that one. Mine is: not necessarily. Here’s why.

At any given moment, a lot of people aren’t at the stage of having children.

• Some people are too young.
• Some people aren’t married.
• Some people aren’t able to have children.
• Some people are called not to marry (e.g. live celibate for the service of the Kingdom).

Yet the mandate in Eden (and repeated after Noah, so still applies today) was, “Be fruitful and multiply.” I think the question is: if you have the opportunity to have children, are you refusing to do so as a result of your own selfishness? It’s a question of the motive of the heart.

Likewise, in Luke 10, the disciples are sent out, town by town.

In some towns they would find “People of Peace.” In other towns, the word would be rejected, and they were to leave the town, warning it, shaking off the dust from their feet.

By definition, they wouldn’t always be “making disciples.” There may be periods in our lives where we have no one that we are presently discipling.

But we ought to be intentionally looking for those people God will give us.

God does the giving, and we are to do the discipling of what he has given us.