Chapter 8a --
Go forth to every ethnic group and help them to become my students. Matt.28:19
We all have been significantly shaped and influenced by particular people. We have learned much of what we know about living life by watching and imitating them. For that period of influence we were in a sense, their disciple.
Who have these individuals been for you?
Jesus¹ promised provisions of abundant life, his promise to ³abide² in us, are made to those who are his intentional attentive students of life. These promises are not made to others.
Jesus offers four pictures in Matt. 7:13-27 to help us not miss the path into his community of prayerful love where what the law and the prophets really said is fulfilled because people actually treat others the way they would like to be treated. The key is actually doing what Jesus says, committed intentionality, in contrast to managed externalities.
The aim of this attending to Jesus is the transformation of our personality to take on a consistent divine kind of love at its core. Discipleship to Jesus is motivated by the desire that we actually be changed to take on his character. This presupposes that we recognize the objective state as vitally much more preferred than our present state.
(1 Cor 13; Col. 3; 1 Peter 2; 2 Peter 1:1-15; 1 John 3:1-5:5)
How is such discipleship to work now, where is Jesus so we can be with him and learn from him?
His spirit of truth sent ³alongside to help², the Holy Spirit. He communicates with our spirit. He speaks to us. We can hear if we are listening.
The personal presence of Jesus with individuals and groups that trust him was soon understood by Jesus¹ first students to be the practical reality of the kingdom of God now on earth. That is, it is what the kingdom is as a factor in their lives. This reality is the additional ³life² of which the apostle John makes so much in his writings. It is the ³in Christ² that forms the backbone of Paul¹s understanding of redemption.
This reality of kingdom life is not the visible symptoms of good works and religious symbolism, but it is rather a hidden inner one, in the spirit with the Father who is in secret. It is not something that can be packaged, managed, and dispensed by one human to another.
(Romans 8:14; 14:17-18)
Discipleship is the path from initial faith in Jesus to a life of fulfillment and routine obedience.
What is it that Jesus is so ³good at² that we choose to seriously attach ourselves to him in order to learn and take it on for ourselves?
He lives in the kingdom of God, applies that kingdom for the good of others and makes it possible for others to enter for themselves.
As a disciple of Jesus I am with him, by choice and by grace, learning from him how to live in the kingdom of God. This is the crucial idea, how to live within the range of God¹s effective will his life flowing through mine.
This is no part-time, single component of my life, but as a disciple of Jesus, I am learning from him how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life.
Note also that it is principally the how of life, rather than the what. God is much more interested in the character or spirit of our actions than their mechanics and particulars.
Life in the kingdom is not just a matter of not doing what is wrong. The apprentices of Jesus are primarily occupied with the positive good that can be done during their ³days under the sun² and the positive strengths and virtues that they develop in themselves as they grow toward ³ the kingdom prepared for them from the foundations of the world² (Matt. 25:34). What they, and God, get out of their lifetime is chiefly the person they become. And that is why their real life is so important.
The cultivation of oneself, one¹s family, one¹s workplace and community‹especially the community of believers‹thus becomes the center of focus for the apprentice¹s joint life with his or her teacher.
One realization of a disciple¹s life is living out their work, their jobs, with energy, intelligence, and dedication as unto the Lord and not unto other people. Done in the character of God¹s life, it will be quite helpful and even refreshing to others. We will naturally react differently to the bumps along the way. Those differences will betray the source of our life.
How to become a disciple
Recognize the life of God in Jesus to be the most charming and precious thing you¹ve ever seen and then go after it like the rare pearl. We need to count the cost and then see it as an incredible bargain.
How can we come to this being our honest assessment? How can we come to admire Jesus that much?
a. Remember the rule of the kingdom: ask
b. Dwell in his words‹become familiar with the Gospels and let them sink in
c. Decide, with deliberate intention to become a disciple of Jesus