Introduction:
Disciple is an individual who follows his master very diligently, There is a difference between follower and disciple, Difference lies in the heart of the person, Follower is a person who follows his master footsteps, Disciple is a person who follows his master with a self denial and a heart to become more like his master, Discipleship is a process of becoming a disciple, It is a transforming process, a process which transforms your heart to be more like the heart of JESUS
Discipleship involves 2 significant steps
1) Being a disciple and 2) Making disciples
Being a Disciple:
In Matthew 16:24 JESUS defines disciple as follows "who ever wants to be my disciple should deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me"
so from the above verse JESUS calls the one who denies himself, Carries his cross and follows him as a disciple,
a) Self denial:
Every man has a heart of his own, which governs his action, god who introspects our heart says in genesis 6:5 heart of the man is always inclined towards evil, This is the reason why you need to ignore your self heart and replace it with the heart of the god, Heart of JESUS himself.
Self denial is a transforming process where the way how your heart thinks, is replaced with how god's heart thinks. to get this transformation we need to understand how god thinks, who will teach us that except holy spirit, Holy spirit who dwells within us teaches us the ways of god and transforms our ways in line with gods heart, when we start obeying holy spirit we start ignoring our self, It happens naturally, Like how darkness dies when light is lit.
b) Carry the cross:
Holy spirit who dwells in us doesn't delete our character or our hearts, He transforms it, The heart which was used to lust, steal, lie, drink and kill is now altered to love, to have faith and to have hope, But if we deliberately doesn't obey holy spirit, we end up reversing our heart to become evil in fact more evil than before (refer: Mat 12:45),
From James 4:4 we understand, Friendship with world is enmity with god, doesn't that mean friendship with God is enmity with the world ?? Yes it is people will hate you for becoming a disciple of JESUS Christ. JESUS also says that in Mat 10:22 "And you will be hated by all on account of My name; but the one having endured to the end, he will be saved" World will hate you and hurt you and make fun of you on account of his name this is the cross, when this cross is laden on you, you have to choose between obeying the holy spirit or disobeying him, Disobeying will reverse you heart to evil one, obeying will sustain the nature of your transformed heart, And every day you may be tempted and people will abuse you, will you still obey and carry the cross like how JESUS did despising the shame and looking forward for the Joy which was kept in front of him ?
c) Follow me:
Following his foot steps is the place, where you see the fruit of your transformed heart (Kingdom of heaven), Following him means following JESUS through the grave till the kingdom of heaven, JESUS came into the world and accomplished the task for which he was sent, God has a plan for you and me and his plan also has a purpose to be achieved, Purpose why JESUS came was not to heal the sick and raise the dead, He did that, but his purpose was to redeem all the sinners, he did that in the cross, he fulfilled his purpose, Likewise we have some purpose to accomplish, do we really know why on earth we were created and placed in this place, in this specific family and in this specific period of time, That is Gods plan to make us accomplish some purpose, If you haven't discovered or asked that purpose, we cant follow JESUS, if we cant accomplish that purpose, we can't reach heaven Mat 7:21 says that clearly, only who fulfills the will of my father, will enter into the kingdom of heaven.
So anyone who want to be a disciple should lose yourself and have a transformed heart by holy spirit and carry the cross of rejection and hurt by the world and achieve the purpose why god has placed you in this world, so that you can follow him into the kingdom of heaven where our JESUS is in the right hand of God (Romans 8:34)
Making a Disciple:
JESUS Christ came into this world, lived a sinless (not less sin but absolute no sin) life, yet he was crucified in the cross, before crucification he was torn into pieces by whips, tortured with thorns in his head, abused in front of public who followed him for miracles, even though he was the son of god, He submitted to the will of god, and he carried that heavy cross till Calvary, where the nails were driven into his hands out of pain he couldn't even beat his legs, because even legs were nailed to the wood, he cant beat his back too, it was already broken to pieces by whips, he couldn't move his head which was crowned with thorns, how much pain was inflicted on him because of my sin and your sin, Wont we love back our savior who redeemed us, We will (Passion of Christ pictures it more vividly, it will bring only tears to eyes), we will love him absolutely, The one who redeemed us through the cross by shedding his blood says if you love me you will keep my commandment, (John 14:15), one of the prime commandment of JESUS was to make disciples (refer Mat 28:19-20),
If you ask how to make disciple ? remember how you became a disciple
Introduce holy spirit into people's life, holy spirit will then transform the evil hearts and you encourage them to carry the cross by having fellowship, and holy spirit will reveal his purpose and make him achieve it, By flesh it is not possible by spirit it is possible.
Challenges in Modern day context
Mindset of the world
Today the world is running behind the self centric philosophy, be it yoga, books, motivational speeches all say one thing, the potential is trapped within you you have to unleash it, It says if you want to be healthy in mind stretch yourself in weird ways, If you want to be successful, be self confident, If you want to be successful in career, be self motivated, They all focuses only on the self,
next generation projects are focused on personal space, world is trying to create a image we can live without our creator we can live on our own self powered, that's a illusion,
In my life to get a job i tried so hard, i read all self help books, at one point i realized nothing is progressing, That's when i denied my self and completely submitted to his will, then miraculously, i got a job in my dream company. This mindset of self should be changed, only when people realize self help is illusion and self denial and perfect submission to god is the only working formula gods power will be revealed.
Internet and Personal devices
Internet was created as boon for people now it has over grown to become a curse, Internet is like a fire If properly used it will be a light if used improperly it can burn you down to ashes, I heard of families splitting because of internet games which involves money, Pornography, which is a cancer in everyone's spiritual life, Our hearts are by default evil, pornography can inspire your hearts to make it think more evil, homosexuals, sexual offense against women are all rooted from the corrupt heart, which is inspired by pornography
Personal devices are getting so personal and enchanting now, It even replaces the place of your dear ones, Personal devices keep us hooked into them, they keep us entertained always, they are the slow poisons, they eat away your time, you wont have time to notice it. In the parable of sower mentioned in Mat 13, JESUS says about birds which come and take away the seed, Now we have those birds, in our hands in the form of mobile in our bedroom through internet. Psalms 119 says i am keeping your word in my heart, so that i wont sin against you, These birds will take away the seed(word), they wont allow you to keep the words in your heart eventually, you will end up in having your evil heart.
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