Thoughts On Discipleship

One of the last things that Jesus said before He went back to heaven was for us to go and make disciples. Easy enough, right? But what does making a disciple look like?

I feel that many have fallen into the trap that I fell into early on in my walk with God. I thought that making a disciple was to take someone under my wing and teach them how to think and act just…like…me!

I experienced a very rude awakening about two and a half years ago—Jesus showed me that the world didn’t need more people to be like me—it needs more people to be like Him. I had to finally realize that I was wrong from time to time. I experienced problems with selfishness. I said hurtful things to people. I experienced road rage and became angry standing in line at Wal Mart where they have 25 lanes and ONLY TWO REGISTERS OPEN!!! (You get the picture?) Why would anyone want to be like me—I have never actually changed anyone’s life.

The fact is we have a commission from God to go and make disciples—and making a disciple is NOT teaching someone how to be like us, but rather teaching them who Jesus is and challenging them to fall radically in love with Him.

I ask people all of the time, “What is it that causes you to fall in love with Jesus—is it reading your Bible, singing, prayer, dancing before the Lord—whatever it is, do it a lot!” That has caused me to get some weird looks from some people who feel that making a disciple is teaching them to follow all of the rules of being a Christian (“Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew—don’t go with girls that do!”) and then giving them sort of a spiritual to do list—you know, read this, memorize this, go here, say this…get the picture? And we think after people obtain a certain amount of knowledge and say the right things at the right times THEN (and only then) are they considered a disciple.

If those are the rules of being a disciple then, well, not many of the original disciples would have qualified. Peter was usually saying the wrong things at the wrong times and was sometimes violent. Matthew was a tax collector—the scum of the earth in those days. James and John were self centered. Thomas actually doubted the resurrection. Yet all of these men had one thing in common—it wasn’t that they all looked or acted the same, but rather they had a passionate love for Jesus—that is what a disciple is.

Once again I think our efforts would be a lot more effective if we would quit trying to teach people how to do what we do and actually teach them who the person of Jesus Christ is and then challenge them to fall madly and passionately in love with Him—that, in my opinion is how we are supposed to make a disciple.