Your Discipleship Devotional

Hello Disciples!

I am pleased to share a new development at Authentic Joy. But first, a back story:

Eight months ago, we started something new – online discipleship small groups. We have two groups that meet every other week, and the experience has been nothing short of transformational. I am not exaggerating when I say that these meetings are the most life-giving get-togethers in my life. I look forward to every session and leave our time together feeling refreshed, encouraged, and revitalized in my walk with God. And I’m not alone. Many have said that these groups are a tremendous source of life, learning and community that they cannot find anywhere else.

The format we follow is simple: I send out a short reading with a few questions for reflection a week ahead of our meeting. So, when we meet, there is no teaching, just conversation. We share deeply about how the material intersects with our lives and the down-to-earth (sometimes messy) ways in which we are being transformed and challenged to become like Jesus. There are no experts. We all share from the heart. We all listen deeply. We all hold each other before God and encourage each other to pursue Him.

So, we at Authentic Joy thought, “Why not take these reflections and share them with our online community as a bi-weekly devotional?” So, from today, that is just what we will be doing! We hope that it will be of great value to you on your discipleship journey! Here is installment #1:

1. Discipleship Introduction

What is the formula for spiritual growth?

Many of us may have grown up in faith traditions where the formula or model for spiritual growth was something like this:

TRUTH + CHOICE = TRANSFORMATION

This model emphasizes learning truth and then choosing behaviour that aligns with what we have learned.

Question: Is it working?

I propose that our traditional model for transformation is not working. There are two reasons why this model cannot work:

It emphasizes external behaviour modification rather than internal transformation.
It emphasizes truth rather than love as the most important factor in our spiritual growth.

If we look at the anatomy of the human soul, we can see why this is a problem.

If we focus solely on truth (which is important for transforming our thoughts and beliefs) and external behaviour (which addresses our words and actions), without addressing the emotions, values and desires of the heart, then we have omitted a critical part of the human being!

Jesus’ model is quite different. Have a look at what He says in these 3 scriptures:

Matthew 5:27-28 (NLT)

Matthew 23:25-26 (NLT)

John 13:34-35 (NLT)

Jesus’ model focuses on the heart and only one thing transforms the heart – love. You can’t teach love. Jesus came to earth give us an experience of love that is transformative. Something the law was powerless to do.

Jesus’ model is called discipleship. John Mark Comer states it this way: “Be with Jesus. Become like Him. Do what He does.” The disciples didn’t just follow Jesus’ teachings; they literally followed Jesus wherever He went. Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” was never anything less than an invitation to do life with Him from that point forward.

Interestingly, it seemed that Jesus also thought that a group of disciples worked better than walking with Him alone. Companionship was also an integral part of Jesus’ model.

REFLECTION

What does the distinction between learning truth about Jesus versus experiencing love through being with Jesus bring up for you? Process with Holy Spirit.
What does the distinction between managing our behaviour to be in line with Biblical principles through force of will versus words and actions that naturally flow from having the same thoughts, beliefs, emotions, values and desires as Jesus bring up for you? Process with Holy Spirit.

Copyright 2026, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

22 February 202622 February 2026

When God Shows Up

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you would know that I am passionate about the pursuit of a tangible experience of God. I believe it is what the Bible evidences and advocates. It is my reality. Apostle John says it well:

1 John 1:1-4 (NLT

We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

John speaking after Jesus’ ascension said, “…our fellowship IS with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.”

This blog is simply meant to stir up my heart for more of God and hopefully to stir up yours too. I want to share with you 3 of my favourite encounters recorded by ordinary people. The first from Blaise Pascal:

The year of grace 1654,

Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.

He kept this account of His encounter with the FIRE of God sewn inside his jacket. A constant reminder of the reality that he touched.

The second quote is from Frank Laubach as recorded in Letters By A Modern Mystic:

May 24, 1930

This has been a week of wonders. God is at work everywhere preparing the way for his work in Lanao. I shall tell you some of the wonders presently. But just at this moment you must hear more of this sacred evening. The day had been rich but strenuous, so I climbed “Signal Hill” back of my house talking and listening to God all the way up, all the way back, all the lovely half hour on the top. And God talked back! I let my tongue go loose and from it flowed poetry far more beautiful than any I ever composed. It flowed without pausing and without ever a failing syllable for a half hour. I listened astonished and full of joy and gratitude. I wanted a dictaphone for I knew that I should not be able to remember it – and now I cannot. “Why,” someone may ask, “did God waste his poetry on you alone, when you should not carry it home.” You will have to ask God that question. I only know He did and I am happy in the memory.

Below me lay the rice fields and as I looked across them I heard my tongue saying aloud, “Child, just as the rice needs the sunshine every day, and could not grow if it had sun only once a week or one hour a day, so you need me all day of every day. People over all the world are withering because they are open toward God only rarely. Every waking minute is not too much.”

My final encounter is recorded in 1922 by Sadhu Sundar Singh in his book At The Master’s Feet:

When I rose from my prayer I beheld a glowing Being, arrayed in light and beauty, standing before me. Though He spoke not a word, and because my eyes were suffused with tears I saw Him not too clearly, there poured from Him lightening -like rays of life-giving love with such power that they entered in and bathed my very soul. At once I knew that my dear Saviour stood before me. I rose at once from the rock where I was seated and fell at His feet. He held in His hand the key of my heart. Opening the inner chamber of my heart with His key of love, He filled it with His presence, and wherever I looked, inside or out, I saw but Him.

I hope these God-encounters have blessed you. Each of these men has made an indelible mark on history as they walked with God and served humanity. They have served as a constant reminder to me that the God of the Bible still walks among us today. Jesus is not some historical figure existing only on pages of scripture to be studied from afar. Jesus speaks, touches, invades, overcomes, arrests… He is REAL and PRESENT.