Discipleship

What do you think of when you hear the word discipleship?

Bible Study? Prayer? Tithing? Service? Evangelism? All of them wrapped up into a book sold by LifeWay complete with a semester schedule, benchmarks and gold stars???

Me too...kind of!

I've been reading the "Great Commission" in Matthew 28 and it has been changing my understanding of this word.

Here's the part we all know:

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..."

It's a very powerful statement. Unfortunately, it's incomplete! I cut the front and back out of Jesus' actual phrase. Here's the whole thing:

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

It's interesting to me that we cut Christ out of the great commission! We trust Him for salvation but after that it's almost like we say, "Thanks, I'll take it from here..."

I think this approach is really stupid!

Here's a couple takeaways that hit me pretty hard:

1) This statement is really about Jesus' activity through me not my activity for Him! (All authority to Christ...therefore go...)

2) His request (ALL nations, ALL that I have commanded you) is actually pretty ludicrous.

3) Jesus seems to know that it's ludicrous since He reassures us that He will be with us to the end of the age...you know, like it's going to take that long!!!

To be continued...