4 Things Jesus Taught About Making Disciples

Prayer

If you want to be a disciple maker, you must be a person of prayer. Jesus started his day off with prayer. He would often slip away before the disciples got up and spent time with His Father. There were other times where He would spend all night praying.

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After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.

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It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

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In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

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But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

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In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.

We see a pattern in Jesus life of consistent prayer. Prayer revealed what the Father was doing. When Jesus discerned what the Father was doing He would do the same thing.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

Jesus spent time with the Father to keep his priorities in the right order. He did not want to do anything outside of what the Father wanted Him to do. This took active communication. He and the Father would communicate, then Jesus would do what the Father wanted.

We must do as Jesus did. Consistent prayer must be part of our life. We must seek the will of the Father. Once we discern what it is that He wants us to do, we go do it.

How do we know what God wants us to do? If you are a person of prayer, you will recognize His voice and trust His command. God does not speak to us in an audible voice, but speaks to our soul through our hearts. He will speak and we must come to a point of surrendering our will to His.

If we are going to make disciples, we must be people of prayer. There must be a willingness for them to learn from us. This can only happen when we pray for a person. Only God can give them a heart desire to want to learn from us. God will only give us a disciple when we are following Him.

Scripture

Jesus not only knew the scriptures but, He lived them.

Another aspect of Jesus’ life that was vividly portrayed to the disciples was the importance and use of the Holy Scriptures. This was evident both in maintaining his own personal devotion and in winning others to the Way. Often he would take special pains to impress on his followers the meaning of some passage in the Bible, and he never ceased to use the Scriptures in his conversation with them. Altogether there are at least sixty-six references to the Old Testament in his dialogues with the disciples in the four Gospels, to say nothing of the more than ninety allusions to it in his speaking with others. All this served to show the disciples how they, too, should know and use the Scriptures in their own life. The principles of Bible exhortation were practiced before them so repeatedly that they could not help but catch on to at least some of the rules for basic scriptural interpretation and application. Moreover, the ability of Jesus to recall so freely Old Testament passages must have impressed the disciples with the necessity of learning the Scriptures by heart, and letting them become the authority for their pronouncements. In everything it was made abundantly clear that the word written in the Scriptures and the word spoken by Christ were not in contradiction, but rather complemented each other. That which Jesus taught was also to be cherished by his disciples. Hence, the Scriptures, coupled with his own utterance, became for them the objective basis of their faith in Christ. Furthermore, it was made clear to them that if they were to continue in his fellowship by the Spirit after he was gone from them in the flesh, they would have to abide in his Word ( ).

Coleman, Robert Emerson. The Master Plan of Evangelism (Kindle Locations 629-641). House of Majied Publications. Kindle Edition.

Jesus walked according to the scriptures to demonstrate to his disciples the importance of knowing and obeying the scripture.

This is why it is so important to spend time in the scriptures. In order to live by them, we must know them. When we live according to the will of God and not for the applause of men, others will take notice.

I find that when we live outside of the cliche’s of society and live differently than the rest of the world, people will pay attention. Sometimes for the good and sometimes not so good. However if you walk in the scriptures, you will experience God in ways that others don’t.

People will want to do what you are doing when they see the evidence of God in your life. This is when it is good to disciple others.

The disciples did not immediately follow Jesus day one. They had to follow him and see what he was about before they would commit to following Him. We are the same way.

Evangelism

Jesus main effort was the spread of the gospel for the sake of salvation.

17 From that time Jesus began to [a]preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus knew that the greatest need a person had was a personal relationship with Him. They needed to repent and believe in Jesus.

7 And as you go, [h]preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven [i]is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. 9 Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, 10 or a [j]bag for your journey, or even two [k]coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his [l]support. 11 And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay [m]at his house until you leave that city. 12 As you enter the [n]house, give it your [o]greeting. 13 If the house is worthy, [p]give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, [q]take back your blessing of peace. 14 Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

A person cannot follow Jesus if they are not saved. In order for a person to be saved we must share the gospel.

Teaching

Jesus used His life as his teaching tool. He did not have a curriculum that the disciples completed in order to accomplish disciple status. He simply lived life with them. He used everything he did as a teaching moment for the disciples. He did not force teaching opportunities. He let them come to Him in daily life and use them as teaching moments. (Rich young ruler, Sermon on the mount, explanation of the parables, ect…)

We are to use our lives for the glory of God. My personal goal is to infuse Christ into every area of my life (Family, social circles, church, places I shop, Board of Education, strangers, ect..) I want to share the good news I know to be true with everyone I come in contact with. In order for me to do this, I must be walking with the Lord myself.