Discipleship is not an optional extra to people who are already born-again. I don’t believe that you can make Jesus your Savior, and later on, at your discretion and at your convenience, make Him Lord. I believe He must be Lord OF all, or He isn’t Lord AT all. Many people just want to trust in Jesus to save them from their sins and take them to heaven when they die, but they don’t want the process of discipleship. They are willing to enter into the Gate, but they are not willing to walk the Path. That’s what it amounts to. Many Christians have entered the Gate, but very few of them are actually walking the Path. There they are, sitting just inside the Gate, rejoicing in a future hope, rejoicing in a future heaven, rejoicing in a future reward, but they don’t realize that being a disciple of Jesus does not simply mean praying a prayer or believing something or joining something. It is a process. It is the Path, in fact, that leads you to Life. The Gate does not lead you anywhere – it is only the beginning of the journey, it is not the destination.
Now, what is a disciple? What really is a disciple? Well, a disciple, according to the Scripture, according to the usage of the term if you’ll look this up in Strong’s Concordance, a disciple is a learner. A pupil. A student, if you will. Let me ask you a question. If Jesus call us to be His disciples, and a disciple is a learner, a pupil, a student, what does that mean? It means…
“COME TO ME, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and LEARN FROM ME” (Matthew 11:28).
Underline that, highlight that, write that down, but make special note of that phraseology. “Take My yoke upon you and learn OF Me,” King James says. “Learn FROM Me,” New King James says. “For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden light.”
Now that word “learn” there, where He says “learn of Me” or “learn from Me”, that is the same root word as “disciple”. A disciple is one who learns. When He says, “learn of Me” He is saying, “Be discipled by Me. Learn Of Me. Be my pupil. Be my student. Come to Me and be discipled by Me.” That is discipleship. “Come to Me and be discipled by Me.” We could say “Come to Me” is the Gate, and “Be discipled by Me” is the Path. We could say, “Come to Me (enter into the Gate) and learn of Me (walk the Narrow Path).” Do you see that? The Gate, and the Path. It’s not just coming to Jesus, it is LEARNING of Jesus! Coming to Jesus, everyone [is] coming to Jesus – but how many are LEARNING of Him? “Come to Me and be discipled by Me. Come to Me and learn of Me.”
What’s my point? To be a disciple of Jesus means you are a student of Jesus. A pupil of Jesus. A learner of Jesus Himself, as opposed to going someplace to learn ABOUT Jesus from someone else. It’s a very fine, fine distinction. See, most churches will want you to come to church and learn about God, learn about the Bible, learn about church doctrine, learn about their denomination, learn about their religious ways and customs and philosophies and traditions. But that is not what Jesus said at all. He says, “Come to Me and learn of Me.” “Come to Me and learn of Me.” “Come to Me (that is the Gate); learn of Me (that is the difficult Path).”
So what was He doing? Was He teaching them teachings? Was He giving them doctrines? No, He said, “Come and be with Me.” It says in Mark that He selected twelve disciples. Why did He select them? Not just to give them some teachings. Not to give them some doctrines. But it says “He selected Twelve that they should be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach” (Mark 3:14). Your primary calling as a disciple is to BE with Jesus, because that is how you LEARN OF HIM. It is not learning about the Christian faith – that is a thing. It is not learning about Bible doctrine – that is a thing. We’re not talking about things, we’re talking about a Person. It is not learning about Christian things or religious things or spiritual things. It is not learning about the Bible. It’s not even learning ABOUT Jesus, it is learning OF Jesus FROM Jesus. Can you see that? Can you see the difference between coming TO Jesus and learning OF Him, versus coming to someone else and learning ABOUT Him? The difference is night and day, and for the majority of Christians, they don’t know a thing in the world directly FROM Jesus, they only know what they have heard the church say, what brother so-and-so said, what sister so-and-so said, some book, some article, some tape they got off of the Internet or off the television set. They don’t have a personal, intimate, experiential, knowledge and knowing of who the Lord is for themselves because they have never come to HIM to learn of HIM. They go everywhere else but Jesus to learn ABOUT Him, but they never come to Jesus to learn from Jesus. And that’s what being a disciple of Jesus is all about. If you go anywhere else you are their disciple, you are not the disciple of Jesus.
It is learning OF Jesus FROM Jesus. Here’s what I believe – now, you check yourself out and see if you believe this as well. I believe Jesus is alive. I believe He LIVES. He is not a million miles away off in heaven either. But He is an ever-present help in time trouble. He says I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I believe He is risen, I believe He is alive, and I believe He is well able to teach us and disciple us HIMSELF if only we will come to Him. If only we will come to Him and learn of Him. He is alive. He did not just hand down some teachings because He knew He was going to die, and so He gave some teachings to the disciples so they could keep the message alive and keep the Gospel going forth in His absence. Absolutely not! He is alive, and He is teaching us, and He wants to disciple us, if only we will come to Him and learn of Him.
Amen and
Amen!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank-you for preaching the truth….a relationship with our Precious Jesus who leads us and guides into all truth!!!!!!!!!!
Resonating Truth my Dear Brother,
So insightfull, clear and penetrating,you are a blessing to His Body. Keep moving forward in your learning of Him and expressing Christ.
Ray
Learning from Jesus is all important for our relationship with Him and our continued serving Him in these days. However the reason most christians never ever reach that place in their walk with Christ is because they were never discipled to begin with. Church and church activities, programs and Bible studies will never be a substitute for the discipleship process modeled by Jesus Christ. His only marching orders givin was to make disciples of all nations first given to his 11 and then to be perpetuated in every generation of disciple thereafter. Disciple making is the teaching process that Jesus spoke of in his commission.”Teaching them to obey all that I taught you.” Then indorsing that teaching with the power we are to do it in. He said “Lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.” The very same authority he spoke of in verse 18 of the text. But we must realize that the LO only follows the go. Go in the command is not an action verb. It is best translated as you are going. You see Jesus fully expected us to be making disciples and we see recorded in the book of Acts the results of the first century chritians obediance to the command. The multiplication of not only christians but the multiplication of churches as well. Understand that these were not just numbers they were powerful men and women of God. So powerful were they that the 1st century church reached the whole known world with the gospel of Christ inside of 50 years.They were powered by the (out of being,exousia,authority of Christ)because of their obediance to disciple making. But what do we have today? Fully 2 billion people in this world who have never heard a redemptive word of Christ and another 2 to 3 billion at best poorly evangelized. Something happened after that first century. But what? Just look around in your church or any other church you find today. What you see there are good little christians; comfortable and content in the preaching and other activities in the church. They sit in there pews and they may even be tithers to the church, but they will never effect even one other life for the kingdom of God. John 15:8 records Jesus telling his Disciples this “My Father is glorified by this,that you bear much fruit,and so prove to be my disciples.” John chapter 15 mentions no fruit, some fruit and more fruit but the fruit that glorifies the Father is only much fruit. We are not multiplying. We are rotting on the vine. We are perpetuating the dead faith James spoke of in his writings. Faith without works is dead being by itself James 2:17. I close with the working diagram of this process perpetuated in Paul’s life by Christ. 2 Timothy 2:1-2 says this “You therefore, my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Four generations of disciples are mentioned here. Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful men and faithful men to others. The process will be germinal and multiply to the ends of the earth and to the end of the age. There is no plan b.
Amen Chip and Amen Paul!
Yeah for this teaching i would say a big amen, for it is total truth. Jesus is alive, well, intimate in our lives, he loves us to wish to know him and he will speak over us, to guide us, and teach us more of him personally.
Try him out and see. Call out to him and mean it and you will surely find him. I did.
Eve
the church has not read John 14:26 .
I am a Biblical counselor and have posted this on my office door. I have the privilege of walking people into relationship with Him and then watch them take off with their Savior, Lord and Life – no longer needing man or desiring to follow man. Very well written challenge to all of us, His kids.
We must teach religion out of ecclesia!
One of the main mistakes with individuals in the church is that they readily accept a man’s word from the front of an assembly of people without discerning the truth for themselves and weighing up what is true and what is false. Only the Word of God never returns onto God void. It always has a positive effect. God wants people to rely totally on ‘His Word’ and not the philosophies of learned men and women, as many of these philosophies are variations of what sounds right and true but very far from Gods inspired truth. Be careful, as many come into bondage as a result of accepting readily what is sometimes preached. Be also careful that what is preached does not try to control you. If you take Jesus’s yoke upon you, it is not cumbersome, burdensome or controlling. It is light, favor some and gentle. You will rest in ‘The Truth.’ He, ‘the truth,’ is who sets you free! So don’t be a slave to any man, church leader or minister. Honour God by obeying and understanding His Word and in doing this first, you will be at rest, you will find peace and you will be a positive influence in the lives of others.
I really needed to hear this message, thank you, Chip.
Beautiful, passionate message, Chip. Thank you for the insight to Discipleship. Will keep that in mind “Come to Me (that is the Gate); learn of Me (that is the difficult Path).” As I know He (is The Only One Who) never abandons me. Amen!
Wow Chip as usual you have hit the nail right on the head–well said.
However Chip I will say that there is a world of difference being with brothers and sisters in Christ, and people of the world. The trouble is we don’t learn our lessons fast enough, but we have entered the gate and are on the path – and one day we expect Jesus to complete the work He started in us. Lately I have been struggling with anxiety about all of my children – they are all going through deep water. My daughter is a believer, she prayed for me that I will accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, but sadly not my sons. I was a church goer – and yes, sadly I didn’t know Jesus, because as an Anglican church-goer I didn’t know about asking Jesus into my heart. I thought I had done enough by be becoming confirmed. I was very angry when I realised I had missed bringing my children up to truly know Jesus. However what has taken me all of my 26 years as a believer in Jesus, is to learn how to cope with extreme anxiety over my children. And I am sure that I am not the only one who has struggled with anxiety and worry and fear etc. Our true enemies! It has taken me all this time to realise that there is life and death in words – and our thoughts have to line up with our words! Simple but not easy to do. But God has helped me to learn how to change the negative into a positive, and the effect on myself has been great. A few months ago I thought I was slipping into depression, until I learnt this simple thing on how to overcome – so little by little our Lord helps us. The outer sins are easier to deal with than the inner sins. You just stop doing them, but the inner sins of fear and worry and inability to trust is something else. I have been so grateful for how Father God has helped me overcome and how patient He has been with me in my walk so far! But the climb is getting steeper and rockier and harder than it was in the beginning and all my little helps and supports have been kicked out from under me. I still go to church, I simply need to be among my brothers and sisters in Christ, and that helps me keep my feet on the ground, and the accountability that I need. But I do find such a huge difference between people who truly know and love the Lord and the world, but accept that we all have still a long way to go before we can even think we are disciples! Hopefully we will get there eventually!
Keep it up with your good work Chip. We all need to be taught by Jesus himself and not spiritual gurus that know Jesus to establish that relationship. Christ Spiritual Authority (CSA) is the only path for our life to rule and reign on earth as it is in heaven and to be followers of Christ, we all need to be quick to repent and know that the Kingdom of God near us. Amen!
Chip, thanks so much for this on target Word from the Lord. It truly is all about an intimate relationship with Him. This message is the core of Christianity and needs to be spread far and wide. Thanks again for being a devoted follower of Jesus.