The ideal disciple

The Ideal Disciple 1

Jesus’ last words to his disciples before leaving earth were go and make disciples of all nations. The words go is not a suggestion is a command. (Story of Cow)

I believe the churches main task is to make disciple not converts. In the NT the word disciples appears 269x’s Christians only 3x’s and believers 2x’s. However a disciple must be a believer. The word disciple means a “learner”

The church and home need to have a biblical plan for discipleship. We need to be deliberate in obeying Christ's command to make disciples (Matthew 28:20). There are three key elements to discipling:

1) Disciple: Receiving. We take the Christian truths that we have received.
2) Discipling: Passing on. We pass on these truths to others. This is discipling.
3) Reproducing: Envisioning. We build a reproductive vision in the disciple.

Five Misconceptions of Discipleship

Discipleship takes place when people attend church programs.
In fact, much good teaching can take place during church, but it is often too general and not targeted to the special needs of a new Christian.
Discipleship just happens.
In fact, we must go counter cultural and instruct others personally and lovingly about the ways of Christ. We need to ask the hard questions and get involved into the process of why they do things.
Discipleship is only for new Christians.
In fact, discipleship is a process that should be occurring all through our lives. A disciple always follows his master's life. Once a disciple, always a disciple.
Discipleship is a program.
In fact, discipleship is a lifestyle. We are Christ's disciples and this Christian life calls us to learn and live like Him. This will require significant changes in the way we think and live.
Discipleship is only for certain parts of our lives.
In fact, Christ wants to teach us in each aspect of our lives from our parenting skills to handling finances. This differs from some cults which will actually make your decisions for you! Mentoring is a term that describes the training of a person in one or more specifc areas.

True discipleship must take all of Christ's teaching and implement them into our lives in such a way that we live like Christ did.

The Training of the Disciple 2

If we are going to be good disciple makers, then we need to turn to Jesus Christ and look at how He trained disciples. We will discover the heart of discipleship rests not so much on what one says but what one does. Words of instruction confirm the life message. We will pursue Jesus in our lives through observing and imitating Christ.

Have you ever heard the saying “tell me who you’re your walking with and I will tell you how you are?”

The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples,"

God gives me a learner's heart

(1) Discipleship occurs all the time; it never stops. Once the heart to learn from God stops, the Christian no longer has genuine communion with God.

(2) Discipleship focuses on knowing God as the living source of knowledge rather than some abstract knowledge. People often get bored with hearing the same Bible stories over and over. This is because we focus on knowledge about the Bible rather than knowing God Himself.

(3) Discipleship produces discipler makers through experiencing God's grace. We see that Christ knew what to say because He had been a learner, a disciple. In other words, we can only be as good a teacher as we are a disciple.

Personal characteristics that develop in a disciple's life:

Decisiveness: 1 Cor 16:13,14 "Be alert, stand firm, be brave, be strong. Do everything in love."
Maturity. Grown up into Christ -- Eph 4:14,15
Diligence. Have a great desire to LEARN and great diligence to PRACTICE what you have learned. 1 Tim 4:15, 16
Faithfulness. Get to know one another. Establish trust. 1 Cor 4:2; Prov 20:6; Eccl 5:4-6a
Modeling. Be a model for others to follow--1 Tim 4:12
Encouraging. Encourage others to be successful in all areas of life--Phil 2:3,4; Lk 22:24-26; Rom 12:3
Pace setting. Plan for the "long haul"--1 Cor 9:24-27

3 The Purpose of the Disciple = A disciple serves others.

"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word."

• A disciple serves others.
We often don't realize how our genuine spirituality must show up in our daily life. Some might love to study God's Word or meet with God, but in the end there must be fruit that shows up. This fruit will be in some form of service to one another. This is the reason. If we meet with God and God is love, then we will be more loving when we meet with people. John said this. "If we love one another, God abides in us."(1 John 4:12)

The Discipline of the Disciple = A disciple communes with God early each day. "He awakens Me morning by morning"

When we go to sleep talking to our Father to keep us and prepare us for tomorrow, we look forward to meeting our Heavenly Father each day. We want to hear from Him. We must hear from Him. Morning devotions is rooted not in compulsion or fear but in desire to meet God and to do His will.

This will not happen if you go to bed watching movies, doing assignments or playing games. It will begin to come into existence when you pray and meditate before retiring with the expectation of meeting Him in the morning so that you can hear how He wants to work with your tomorrow to do His will.

We might think of the servant image. The servant is up early tending to the fire for the Master. He knows what his master needs so he is attentive and awakes early enough to complete his jobs. As slaves, we awaken to do our Master's will. We are attentive from the moment go.

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The Attention of the Disciple 4

A disciple attentively listens to and obeys God.

He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple."

Did you ever hear a parent call his child and the child was totally inattentive? He kept doing what he was doing. You wonder if he even heard the parent, but since you were next to him you know it was a hearing problem. He did hear but chose not to listen. He didn't respond to the words which were reaching his ears.

When we start seeing this happen in our family, we have a training session. We remind the children of the response we are expecting. Then we try it out. We call and they are to respond like we ask, "Coming Daddy."

Here are some points of truth to build up your faith to always immediately yield to the Lord.
1) God always gives us what we need to do His will.
2) God always has the greatest goals in mind in asking us to do something.
3) God never makes mistakes.

4) Once God has defined what He wants, any other response than what He requested becomes sin.

Because of this, some of you are not hearing from God. One way to fix up this problem is to go back to the last thing He has asked you to do that you beforehand had refrained from doing. You might not be able to do it, but you need to confess and repent from your disobedience. This means you will be willing to do it if He asks you again. In many cases, He will ask you to pick up right where you left off.

Just think about it. If the point of listening to your Heavenly Father is to be guided, you need a heart to accept this guidance. If this heart is lacking, you only get in more trouble by hearing things you do not want to hear. On the positive side, His will is always best for us. He is always welcoming us back close to Him.

Let us be disciples that never stop growing in communing with and obeying God so that we might serve one another's needs.

God's major work in our lives is to make us followers of him

Christ is worth following. Christ is possible to follow.

Christ is waiting for you to follow.