What makes a disciple of christ

Gathering the Family of God Henry B. His Daily Guiding Hand M. Joseph Brough. Our Good Shepherd Dale G. Confide in God Unwaveringly Ulisses Soares. Statistical Report, Brook P. Songs Sung and Unsung Jeffrey R. The Language of the Gospel Valeri V. Overcoming the World Neil L. Return and Receive M.

Russell Ballard. Kindness, Charity, and Love Thomas S. Called to the Work David A. The Greatest among You Dieter F. Yoon Hwan Choi. Whitney Clayton. The Voice of Warning D.

Todd Christofferson. Mark Palmer. Gary E. Scott Grow. Foundations of Faith Quentin L. The aforementioned concepts help illumine the nature of discipleship.

However, they fail to capture the full essence of biblical discipleship. Discipleship in the biblical sense involves walking with the teacher and learning from his words, but it is more than that. Jesus was a rabbi and, of course, the most important peripatetic teacher and disciple-maker in history. Wherever He walked, His students would follow. They were required to memorize the teachings that He spoke as He walked. Jesus selected His disciples. They had to leave their work, their families, and their friends in order to follow Jesus.

Jesus was more than just a peripatetic teacher however. The Greek philosophers learned from their teachers but then tried to improve on that teaching. We are called to understand and teach only what God has revealed through Christ, including the Old Testament Scriptures, for they point to Christ; and the New Testament Scriptures, for they are the words of those Christ appointed to speak in His name. The Great Commission is the call of Christ for His disciples to extend His authority over the whole world.

We are to share the gospel with everyone so that more and more people might call Him Master. This calling is not simply a call to evangelism. Rather, Christ calls us to make disciples. Disciples are people who have committed in their hearts and minds to follow the thinking and conduct of the Master forever.

Such discipleship is a lifelong experience. Discipleship is a lifelong experience of learning the mind of Christ and following the will of Christ, submitting ourselves in complete obedience to His lordship. Thus, when Jesus tells us to go to all nations, we are to go into all the world with His agenda, not our own.

The Great Commission calls us to flood this world with knowledgeable, articulate Christians who worship God and follow Jesus Christ passionately. God communicates to us through His Word. Without knowing God through His Word, we cannot effectively teach others about the truth of the scripture and the benefit in our lives.

God created us with a need for relationships. Fellowship with other believers can help us in our Christian walk and can help those we disciple grow in their faith. In the early church, we see an emphasis on fellowship.

We see those in Acts regularly meet together break bread preach and fellowship, we do the same thing today in Church and are often involved in small groups. The relationship we make in small groups helps us grow in our faith and we can gain much wisdom from those around us. Our goal as Christians is to be more Christ-like, in all that we do we want to look and act as Jesus did.

When we look like Jesus we can help others to imitate Jesus as well. Paul encourages us to look at those of faith who imitate Christ and learn from them. We want to love the way Jesus loved, and to teach the way Jesus taught.

It is amazing what we can learn from simply living as Jesus did, for others and not ourselves. Reading through the Gospel we can see Jesus said some pretty hard things to his disciples. He let them know that he did not have a home-like other people and animals did, he told them that they needed to pick him over their family and that they would be persecuted because they followed Jesus.

When following Jesus and discipling others we need to be dedicated to what we are doing, we cannot give half-hearted work when teaching others.

Jesus warned us what it would cost to follow him, and we need to keep this in mind when teaching others the importance of what it means to follow Christ. Our walk with God will be met with many challenges but how we deal with these challenges will be an example of our faith.