Ask any Christian seeking to
remain faithful to a walk with Christ in a north African, middle eastern, or
south Asian country, and he or she will tell you that the grace of God is free,
but it is not cheap.
When Jesus told his first
disciples to follow him, he told them what he would do to them, but not how
much it would change their lives. That would take three more years of
discipling, of teaching them what it meant to follow him. They had to identify
with him and imitate him. When he was gone, they were to take his place and do
what he had been doing. That’s being a disciple.
A recent weekend spent in
studying how to start the discipling process in the life of another brought the
cost of being a disciple of Jesus home once more. The conference revolved
around IECS, the Intentional Evangelistic Church Strategy (see ncbaptist.org).
The focus was making the local church more evangelistic. Since the local church
is made up of those who claim to be part of the local Christian family, the
goal is to make the church member more aware of and involved in evangelizing
and discipling a lost world.
In the past I had come to see
four major areas involved in the discipling process. This IECS conference
reawakened their importance to me.
The first area is clarifying
priorities (Matthew 6:33). Jesus told his disciples to follow him. He was to be
their priority. Placing God’s Kingdom first puts everything else in the proper
perspective. When we choose to put God first, he promises to take care of all
our basic needs.
The Gospel of Matthew records
the second area as well (Matthew 22:34-40). This area focuses upon the priority
of love for God that is then translated into a love for our fellow man. The
nature of God defines love. Learning to love through God allows us to have the
proper kind of love for others.
In Luke we find my favorite
statement of the third area (Luke 9:23). To be a disciple of Jesus involves
self-denial, daily cross-bearing, and the intentional following of Jesus
wherever he directs. Jesus calls each of us to acknowledge what would build a
wall between him and us and get rid of it. Our crucifixion must involve a death
to the hold the world would have on us. Only then can we be truly free.
The final area is defined
once again in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 28:18-20) and has come to be known as
the Great Commission. There are no limitations here. The command goes to every
follower of Jesus, and it extends to the ends of the world. Every believer is a
disciple and everyone deserves to be a disciple.
For my own ease of use I have
come to call these four texts the Four Great “C”s: the Great Calling in Matthew
6; the Great Commandments in Matthew 22; the Great Commitment in Luke 9; and
the Great Commission in Matthew 28.
Don’t let anyone ever tell
you that living as a disciple of Jesus is easy or cheap. He comes to each of us
and asks us to follow him, be his disciple, and then go make disciples for him
among other people. You cannot seek first the Kingdom of God without
sacrificing your own kingdom. You cannot love God first and love yourself
equally. You cannot seek your own wants in a lifestyle of self-denial and
cross-bearing. You cannot make disciples of people throughout the world if your
primary concerns are comfort and safety.
Becoming a disciple of Jesus
is easy. Living as a disciple of Jesus is much harder. Becoming a disciple of
Jesus is free. Remaining a disciple of Jesus can become costly. You cannot find
a better teacher and daily companion than the Son of God. It’s also a
friendship that will last for eternity. It’s the best investment you can make.
