Discipleship
Devotion 2: Discipleship
Am I making disciples in my image or do they actually look like Jesus? Do I look like Jesus? Am I actually obeying Christ’s teaching as a whole or only the parts that are easy to follow? Does the church actually make disciples?
Making disciples is really hard work. Go to the nations, that’s easy enough, then baptize not to hard either…but here is the kicker and the part most omitted. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. Teaching takes a lot of time, effort, perseverance, patience and love. We as Americans resist the word obey, we hear it and bristle, because it means life is no longer about us. It means we have to change and give up things that own us. It means shedding old mindsets and dying to self. We rebell against obeying anything or anyone. It takes more than a Sunday school class, more than confirmation, more than a weekly sermon to teach obedience. You have to model the beauty of obedience to God and make people hunger for a similar relationship with Him. When they do want to follow you, you lead them to Jesus and then walk with them through life. Jesus walked, ate, laughed, cried, partied and shared intimate life with his disciples for 3 whole years! They still didn’t get it, so He sent the Spirit to keep on teaching them until the end of time. It seems like discipleship was important to Jesus so it should be important to us as well.
This following Jesus stuff is tough, it costs everything! But think about the cost of a life of non-discipleship. To quote Dallas Willard, “Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring.” I don’t know about you, but I would rather give my all to follow Jesus and have abundance in this life and for eternity than miss out by living a life without Him as my Lord.