DISCIPLESHIP
Discipling
others is the process by which a Christian with a life worth emulating commits
himself for an extended period of time to a few individuals who have been won
to Christ, the purpose being to aid and guide their growth and maturity, and
equip them to reproduce themselves in a third spiritual generation.
Allen Hadidian
Successful
Discipling, Moody, 1979.
In his Treatise
Concerning Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards suggested that true
growth in Christian discipleship is not finally mere excitement, increasing use
of religious language, or a growing knowledge of Scripture. It is not even an
evident increase in joy or in love or concern for the church. Even increases in
zeal and praise to God and confidence of one’s own faith are not infallible
evidences of true Christian growth. What, then, is evidence of true
Christian growth? According to Edwards, while all these things may be evidences
of true Christian growth, the only certain observable sign of such growth is a life
of increasing holiness, rooted in Christian self-denial. The church should be
marked by a vital concern for this kind of increasing godliness in the lives of
its members.
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway,
2000, p. 201.
Jesus Christ
demands self-denial, that is, self-negation (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke
9:23), as a necessary condition of discipleship. Self-denial is a summons to
submit to the authority of God as Father and of Jesus as Lord and to declare
lifelong war on one's instinctive egoism. What is to be negated is not personal
self or one's existence as a rational and responsible human being. Jesus does
not plan to turn us into zombies, nor does he ask us to volunteer for a robot
role. The required denial is of carnal self, the egocentric, self-deifying urge
with which we were born and which dominates us so ruinously in our natural
state. Jesus links self-denial with
cross-bearing. Cross-bearing is far more than enduring this or that hardship.
Carrying one's cross in Jesus' day, as we learn from the story of Jesus' own
crucifixion, was required of those whom society had condemned, whose rights
were forfeit, and who were now being led out to their execution. The cross they
carried was the instrument of death. Jesus represents discipleship as a matter
of following him, and following him as based on taking up one's cross in
self-negation. Carnal self would never consent to cast us in such a role.
"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die," wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was right:
Accepting death to everything that carnal self wants to possess is what
Christ's summons to self-denial was all about.
J.I. Packer
I am a
disciple of the Messiah. I will not let up, look back or slow down. My past is
redeemed, my future is secure. I am done with low living, small planning,
smooth knees, mundane talking, chincy giving, and
dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position or
popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised or
rewarded. My face is set; my goal is sure. My road is narrow, my way is rough,
my companions few. My God is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought,
compromised, detoured, delayed or deluded. I will not flinch in the face of
adversity, not negotiate at the table of the enemy or meander in the maze of
mediocrity. I am a disciple of the Messiah. I must go until He comes, speak of
all I know of Him and work until He stops me. And when He
comes for His own, by the grace of God, He will have no problem recognizing me,
because my colors are clear.
Unknown Zimbabwean Pastor
If you are Christians, be consistent.
Be Christians out and out; Christians every hour, in every part. Beware of
halfhearted discipleship, of compromise with evil, of conformity to the world,
of trying to serve two masters – to walk in two ways, the narrow and the broad,
at once. It will not do. Half-hearted Christianity will only dishonor God,
while it makes you miserable.
Horatius Bonar
Light
and Truth, v. 3, The Acts and Larger Epistles, 1869.
A disciple is
literally a follower, a pupil, a learner, an apprentice. He is one who has
dedicated not only to follow his master but also to become like Him.
Dann
Spader
Growing a Healthy Church, Moody, 1991, p. 18.
A true discipling ministry will include every aspect of winning
people to the Savior, building them up in their faith, and equipping them to
win and build others.
Dann
Spader
Growing a Healthy Church, Moody, 1991, p. 18.
There are
many willful, wayward, indifferent, self-interested Christians who cannot
really be classified as followers of Christ. There are relatively few diligent
disciples who forsake all to follow the Master.
Phillip Keller
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Permission by
Zondervan, www.zondervan.com. 1970, p. 67.
Vision is our
dominant sense. A report published by the Xerox Corporation years ago revealed
that 83 percent of what we learn comes through our sight. Hearing provides for
11 percent of what we learn, compared with extremely small percentages from the
other three senses: smell, 3.5 percent; touch, 1.5 percent; and taste, 1
percent. No wonder Jesus used visuals!…( Most
importantly) Jesus very life was a visual, reinforcing what He taught.
Roy Zuck
Teaching as Jesus Taught, Baker, 1995, p.
178.
We cannot
make up for failure in our devotional life by redoubling energy in service. We
shall never take people beyond our own spiritual attainment.
W.H. Griffith Thomas
You are to
follow no man further than he follows Christ.
John Collins
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 52.
Few follow
Him for love, but for loaves, John 6:26; few follow Him for His inward excellencies, but many follow Him for their outward
advantages; few follow Him that they may be made good by Him, but many follow
Him that they may be great by Him.
Thomas Brooks
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 279.
Paul
presented this “older woman (teaching) younger woman” model as one of the
greatest teaching opportunities mature Christian women can have in the church.
They care share wisdom out of their years of experience, something even mature
men have no capacity to do. Furthermore, these mature women can do what men
should not do in a personal setting – to communicate with women regarding very
intimate matters. It’s obvious Timothy faced this
challenge in Ephesus when Paul exhorted him – particularly as a young sin man –
to “treat…older women as mothers, and younger woman as sisters, with absolute
purity” (1 Ti. 5:1-2).
Gene Getz
Elders and Leaders, Moody, 2003, p. 118.
In Christ’s
day the world was filled with intellectuals and influential people. There were celebrated
philosophers in Athens, unsurpassed scholars in Alexandria, the most powerful
political leaders the world had ever known in Rome, and some of the most
meticulous rabbis of all time in and around Jerusalem. Christ bypassed them all
and called simple, crude, unknown, and uneducated fishermen from Galilee to be
His disciples.
John MacArthur
The Book on Leadership, 2004, p. 114.
Only a
disciple can make a disciple.
A.W. Tozer
Soul winning
should lead to soul building.
Author
Unknown
Marriage is
for making children into disciples of Jesus. Here the focus shifts. This
purpose of marriage is not merely to add more bodies to the planet. The point
is to increase the number of followers of Jesus on the planet… God’s purpose in
making marriage the place to have children was never merely to fill the earth
with people, but to fill the earth with worshippers of the true God… When the
focus of marriage becomes “Make children disciples of Jesus,” the meaning of
marriage in relation to children is not mainly “Make them,” but “Make them disciples.” And the latter can happen
even where the former doesn’t.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008,
p.138-139, www.DesiringGod.org.
We never grow
too old to be mentored or to be a mentor. We can look upon ourselves as
middlemen. We should place ourselves under someone wiser and more knowledgeable
than ourselves in order to learn from them, then be
looking for those to whom we can transmit what we have learned. The torch must
be passed continuously from one generation to the next.
Curtis C. Thomas
Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 173. Used by Permission.
The true
convert is a disciple, a person who has accepted and submitted himself to Jesus
Christ, whatever that may mean or demand. The truly converted person is filled
with the Holy Spirit and given a new nature that yearns to obey and worship the
Lord who has saved him. Even when he is disobedient, he knows he is living
against the grain of his new nature, which is to honor and please the Lord. He
loves righteousness and hates sin, including his own.
John
MacArthur
Matthew 24-28, Moody, 1989, p. 341.
[Discipleship] training cannot be done on a mass scale. It
requires patient, careful instruction and prayerful, personal guidance over a
considerable time. Disciples are not manufactured wholesale. They are produced
only one by one, because someone has taken the pains to disciple, to instruct
and enlighten, to nurture and train one that is younger.
Oswald Sanders
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 150.
As
Christians, I challenge you. Have a great aim. Have a high standard. Make Jesus
your ideal…make Him an ideal not merely to be admired but also to be followed.
Eric Liddell