Discipleship Tape Ministries

Perhaps the most familiar of the parables is that of the prodigal son. The prodigal is a picture of the deceitful heart of man. What we can learn from this will teach us a lot about ourselves. However, we also begin to see a beautiful portrait of a loving and forgiving Father who knows how to wait. Read lesson: 1362B

Here are two stories about lost possessions, a lost sheep and a lost coin. Jesus uses these parables to teach that being lost and found is still life’s one great issue. Christ came to earth, never sinned, died, was buried, and rose again, triumphant over death. He paid the price for our sins so we could be saved. Those who do not accept that message are lost. What is keeping us from seeking out th...

Jesus told the story of a dinner party. All of the invitations had gone out far in advance. The invited parties were to accept or reject ahead of time. When the meal was prepared, the servants went out to tell the guests only to find that they all began to make excuses. What did the master do? The applications of this passage are many concerning both Israel and the church today. Read lesson: 1361B

The parable of the talents is a familiar one. God has given each one of us gifts. Some challenging questions this lesson asks are: To what degree have you invested your time in the Word of God? To what degree have you taken whatever He has given you and poured it into other lives? The Lord commends the workers based on what they do with what they have. Find out what their reward is and what is mea...

Will you be ready when the Lord returns? Although we can and should read the signs of the Lord’s coming, we cannot know in advance exactly when He will return. Therefore, we must be in a constant state of readiness. In this parable, there are two kinds of people: wise and foolish. How can we prepare ourselves to be one of the wise who will be ready when Christ comes again? Read lesson: 1360B

“Life isn’t fair” is a common cry. We know what we deserve, but do we actually want what we deserve? In this parable, the goodman of the house said this, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own.” We think this life is ours and that God should listen to us as we show Him what treatment is fair, and what isn’t. The truth is, we are not our own – we never were. Follow us through this p...

What is the kingdom of heaven like? It is like the man who found a pearl of great price and “went out and sold all that he had, and bought it.” To be a disciple, Jesus concluded, one has to be willing to forsake all he has. The life of surrender is the pearl of great price. But, why would a person want to surrender all he has? It has to do with joy – the joy of the fullness of the life of faith an...

A grain of mustard seed. Nothing in Jesus’ time was considered smaller or of less significance in and of itself. It was not what the seed was, however; it was what the seed became that was so unusual. In the same way, Christ’s life began in an insignificant way – born of an unknown woman, an unmarried carpenter became his stepfather, and with no fanfare He began His life in a smelly stable. See ho...

Satan’s goal is to plant spiritual look-alikes alongside the converted, mixing them together until they become indistinguishable from the other. He has planted bad seed in with the good seed and built a system that even pays respect to the Cross, just as long as it doesn’t lead men and women to the Cross personally. It is time to wake up. Has the enemy been planting bad seeds next to us while we w...

The whole essence of the Christian life can be summarized in the verse, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.” Bearing fruit will be the true evidence of our discipleship. What does this fruit look like, and how many kinds of fruit are there? Are we to focus on the fruit or focus on abiding in Christ? Learn how the Father can be glorified through our...

God gives us a look at His guide to good gardening in John chapter 15. In this passage, He provides us with five prerequisites for bearing good fruit. By following these keys to good fruitbearing, we will be bearing fruit some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred fold – not even being aware it is happening. Read lesson: 1357B

God isn’t looking for casual followers. He is looking for men and women who are willing to forsake all that they have to be His disciples. He is looking for men and women to take up their own personal cross every single day and follow Him. He is looking for men and women like Paul who are willing to die daily, to bear persecution, pain and pressure with joy and gladness for the crown they will one...

We mean well, and we schedule things often with good intentions, but “other things enter in” and they take precedence. What Jesus is saying in this parable is that these other things entering in, though apparently harmless, are killers in disguise, and unless we slow down, reschedule our lives, and learn to recognize which are weeds and which are not, we will go through the whole planting season,...

God’s riches are eternal. They are spendable in eternity. They are free and undeserved, and when properly invested, they reap great dividends in heaven, even though we paid nothing for them. What God wants is for us to be willing to pay whatever price He calls on us to pay to focus on eternal riches. We cannot serve both God and mammon, and we cannot reap what we have not sown. Choices. That’s wha...

Because deceitfulness is so at the heart of the spiritual battle between Satan and God, the Bible has a lot to say about the despair that accompanies deceitfulness. It can rob us of our joy, our perspective, and our walk with God. This lesson is about a particular source of deceitfulness – that of riches. Read lesson: 1355B

Weeds. What undesirables they are. They are good for nothing but to be pulled up, burned, or thrown into the trash heaps of life. Not only are they not attractive in themselves, they crush the life out of the plants that are. What are they? Why did God allow them? Where did they come from physically? And what do they say to us, spiritually? That is the topic of this our third look at the parable o...

Has our seed fallen on stony places? Do we sing praises to God only so long as the sun shines? Do we believe Him only as long as God is meeting our needs on our terms? If we receive the Word only until something happens, the seed has fallen on stony ground. Read lesson: 1354B

Jesus said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” What did He mean? We surely cannot envision a crowd of people, some who had ears, and some who didn’t. They all had ears. He was not implying that some did not have good hearing. He was assuming that they all heard physically what He had to say, but only a certain group of those who heard had the capacity to understand. Read lesson: 1354A

Prayer, simply put, is man falling on his face before a holy God, drinking in the grandeur of His majesty, appropriating the marvel of His grace, claiming the assurance of His promises, and surrendering to the marvel of His will. It is not our taking a laundry list to God for Him to do our bidding, so He can prove He’s God. It is taking our hearts to Him, laying them before Him, and giving up the...

It’s time to turn understanding into wisdom. It’s time to do what we have been talking about for these many months. It’s time to drive a stake in the ground and make some kind of commitment to the Father where this matter of prayer is concerned. Read lesson: 1339A

Paul knew who he was going to pray for and why. He didn’t just bow his head and hope names would pop into his mind. How he did this, we don’t know. It’s just as well. We would turn it into some kind of legalistic requirement if we did. But again and again, he prayed for large groups of people, whole Christian communities apparently by name. No matter how Paul did it, if we are going to pray we nee...

Paul want us to be filled with the fullness of God. That, in essence, is what all of his prayers are all about. The fullness of God is the nature of God released through the lives of His children, “In ever increasing splendor, from one degree of glory to another.” (II Cor 3:18) He also wants to teach us how to pray for that splendor to be released a measure at a time in the lives of others, provid...

Paul wants to teach us to pray. He wants us to learn to pray through the grid of who God, is and as we do to lift those for whom we intercede into the heavenlies, asking God to take that very part of who He is, and make it part of who they are as well. Read lesson: 1337B

The Bible is a book about authority. It begins with a story of God creating a world of order where a theocracy existed and a loving Creator ruled over His creation. There were very few limits placed upon them. The had the freedom to live and serve with almost no parameters. But there was one – there was one particular tree. And the One in authority knew that this tree held nothing good for those i...

Do you have enemies? We all have them, those from days gone by that we cannot forgive or forget. There are those ever-present thorns in our sides who make our lives miserable, and there are those one-time enemies, who pass through our lives on the way to eternity, whom God allows to hurt us or offend us so that someone will love them and pray for them before it is too late. They are all our enemie...