Awaken The Sleeper!

Digging Deeper

Discover Discipleship

Scripture presents discipleship as the process of making followers of Christ into His likeness and training/equipping them to make disciples of others.   It is a lifestyle that involves continual death to self and surrender to Christ.  Matthew 28:18-20 records Christ’s final instructions: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.   Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Discipleship has two major goals.   The first is your transformation into the likeness of Christ.  Romans 8:29 states God’s purpose: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”  This ongoing progression is described in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”  As you can note this is a Spirit-empowered transformation.

The second goal is for each disciple to become disciple-makers.  Colossians 1:28-29 describes Paul’s discipleship aim: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.  For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”  The goal then is to present every person mature in Christ.  Ephesians 4: 12-15 portrays this maturity within the body of Christ: “… building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine … Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

Scripture reveals that suffering is often God’s tool for producing mature disciples.  Romans 5:3-5 teaches: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

The cost of discipleship is high.  Grounded in the word of God, discipleship involves an allegiance to Jesus that supersedes all other relationships, including spouse, parents and children.  Though He used hyperbole, Christ announced some of His most challenging words, recorded in Luke 14:26-27: ““If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  He concludes His statement in v 33: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

These passages make it clear that discipleship may cost your reputation, security, family harmony or even life itself.  Yet this leads to the paradox noted in Matthew 10:39 when Jesus states: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Trying to preserve your life on your own terms results in loss, while surrendering everything to Jesus results in true life.  Luke 6:40 observes: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

Significantly, Jesus never created a two-tier system – ordinary believers versus devoted disciples.  The call to discipleship is non-negotiable for followers of Christ.  You cannot be a Christian without being a disciple and you cannot be a disciple without making disciples.  Christ’s presence through the Holy Spirit still empowers the Great Commission.  The world still needs to hear and see the gospel embodied in your transformed life. 

May you embrace the costly grace of discipleship.  May you immerse yourself in God’s word, submitting to the Holy Spirit.  May you invest in making mature disciples of Christ and so participate in the multiplication that fuels kingdom growth.  “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”  John 15:8

Discover Discipleship!

Someone’s eternity depends on it!

Awaken the sleeper!