Steps To Being A Disciple
STEP 1: BELIEVE AND CONFESS THAT JESUS IS LORD
WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS?
Jesus asked the disciples who other people thought he was; then he asked them the same question. We must each answer this question for ourselves. T. S. Elliot criticized modern thinking when he said, “Jesus, now there was a man; we need more like him. Take Abraham Lincoln, for example.”
Was Jesus just a man with some good ideas, one of many spiritual leaders? Or was he the true God, the one mediator, our only source of life and peace with the Father? It is not enough to know what others say about Jesus: You must know, understand, and accept for yourself that he is the Messiah. You must move from curiosity to commitment, from admiration to adoration. If Jesus were to ask you this question, how would you answer? Is he your Lord and Messiah?
STEP 2: REMOVE YOUR EGO
Peter wanted Christ to be king, but not the suffering Servant prophesied in Isaiah 53. He was ready to receive the glory of following the Messiah, but not the persecution. The Christian life is not a paved road to wealth and ease. It often involves hard work, persecution, deprivation, and deep suffering. Peter saw only part of the picture. Don’t repeat Peter’s mistake. Satan wants to deter us from sacrifice and service by telling us that our difficulties are meaningless, our pain is futile, and that evil will win anyway. Instead, focus on the good that God can bring out of suffering and on the resurrection that follows crucifixion.
STEP 3: VISUALIZE YOUR EGO AS DEAD
Applied to the disciples, to take up the cross meant to identify completely with Christ’s message, even if death were to result. We must deny our selfish desires to use our time and money our own way and to choose our own direction in life without regard to Christ. Following Christ is costly now, but we are promised true victory and eternal rewards.
Following Jesus doesn’t mean walking behind him, but taking the same road of sacrifice and service that he took. The blessing for us is that we can fellowship with him along the way
STEP 4: PLACE JESUS ON THE THRONE OF YOUR LIFE AND OBEY HIM
We have sanitized the Cross. We imprint it on our Bibles, wear it on gold chains around our necks, and stamp it on our bulletins. The Cross is a very important and beautiful emblem to us now. But it wasn’t in Jesus’ day.
Jesus’ declaration concerning the Cross would be equivalent in our day to someone standing up in a political rally and saying, “If anyone wants to vote for me, grab your hypodermic needle with a lethal injection and follow me,” or, “Put a noose around your neck and follow me,” or, “Bring your gas chamber and follow me.”
When Jesus collapsed under the weight of the Cross He carried, there was someone there for Him. The Father had already orchestrated that Simon be there. We don’t have a Simon. We have Someone infinitely better. We have a Savior.
“Two are better than one,” Solomon writes, “because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up” (see Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10).
Our “Other” is Christ Jesus.
If you want to have life—real life, abundant life, eternal life the way it was meant to be lived—deny yourself as you take up your cross and follow Jesus. And when the Cross brings you, as it did our Savior, to your face, you will see standing next to you, standing available to you, standing ready to help you Jesus Christ Himself.
STEP 5: DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE; INSTEAD LOSE YOURSELF IN GOD’S CAUSE
To be willing to put personal desires and life itself into God’s hands means to understand that nothing that we can gain on our own in our earthly lives can compare to what we gain with Christ. Jesus wants us tochoose to follow him rather than to lead a life of sin and self-satisfaction. He wants us to stop trying to control our own destiny and to let him direct us. This makes good sense because, as the Creator, Christ knows better than we do what real life is about. He asks for submission, not self-hatred; he asks us only to lose our self-centered determination to be in charge.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Jim Elliott
True wealth is, above all else, having eternal life. People will die in their sins if they reject Christ, because they are rejecting the only way to be rescued from sin. Sadly, many are so taken up with the values of this world that they are blind to the priceless gift Christ offers. Where are you looking? Don’t focus on this world’s values and miss what is most valuable—eternal life with God.