This Blog is based on the following Bible reading plan passages: Matthew 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Psalms 75, 76, & Proverbs 15.
What Is A Disciple?
Matthew 5:1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him,
There are many today who call themselves Christians, but are they all disciples of Jesus?
A disciple is a dedicated follower or student, someone who desires not just to learn more information, but to actively adopt and live by their mentor's principles, seeking to imitate their teacher's way of life.
I have recently transitioned to a new role within a ministry organisation and as my new line manager handed me a training manual to read, she jokingly quipped, “this is your new bible!”. Now whilst she was joking, the principle was, there are expectations in my new role that really must be learnt and followed. I need to imitate the way they fulfil my new role.
We see throughout the scriptures examples of Jesus’s disciples coming to Him, and we continue to see Jesus’s first response is to teach them, so they can imitate Him. If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must first come and learn from His teaching, so we can do what He does.
When you step into a new role, the real learning comes through the doing, but we all need the theory first. Before you go do, there are a few steps that a wise teacher will take you through. Before Jesus sent the disciples out, He spent time teaching, training and demonstrating what He then authorised them to go do (see Mark 6:1-13).
I want you to take a moment to picture Jesus right now beside you. Being a disciple of Jeus starts with coming near to Him and sitting down, stationary, so you can hear Him teach you. Jesus is right here with us by His Spirit (John 14:26). He is Raboni, the Master Teacher and Trainer, and He tells us we need no man to teach us save the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:27), but are you listening?
If I start a new role, I have a thirst and hunger for knowledge. I want to know how things work, why they work that way and ultimately, I look to see if we can improve our “ways of working”. Perhaps we can adopt this thinking to our discipleship with Jesus.
As disciples of Jesus, do we have a thirst and hunger to hear Him speak, change our ways and live like Him. When we look at Jesus’s life and the things that He did it might look impossible, but this is just one example of where Jesus wants us to sit down, and hear Him say, “with God all things are possible” (Mat 19:26, Mark 9:23).
As His disciple, are we open to “new ways of working”. I would imagine there are ways you are living right now which are more like Jesus than when you first started following Him, but there are always new ways of working. Every day we can learn to walk more like Jesus, be more effective in life and ministry, and, ultimately, fall more and more in love with Him.
Living like Jesus might seem impossible, but impossible doesn’t exist with God. Instead, we are to see ourselves the way God sees us: united with Christ, one Spirit with Him, doing the works that Jesus did. We are His ambassadors, ministers of reconciliation. Our verse tells us we are called to hear Him teach us, but as disciples, we are to imitate Jesus. We are to go teach others what He has taught us, entrusting to faithful men and women what He has entrusted to us.
We are a family of churches working together to reach the world. Take the posture of a disciple, come near, sit at His feet and listen to Him. What part is He asking you to play in our great commission today and are you going to go do it?