Whose Disciple Are You?
“Go and make disciples.” That was and is Jesus’s charge to His church. Sadly, we’ve lost touch with this great commission, and as a result, our churches are filled with anything but disciples of Jesus.
Two things mark disciples - they are followers, and they are learners. And who we follow determines what we learn.
Suppose we are followers of a particular news station, say, MSNBC or Fox. As we tune in and listen to the news, told from the perspective of the employees who earn their living working for their standard-bearer, we are learning to see things in a certain light. Perhaps we could loosely label these as the “liberal light” and the “conservative light.” As we learn from our mentors, we undoubtedly, not only begin to think like them; we also begin to adopt their attitudes, and our hearts are shaped accordingly.
The same is true of the politicians we follow. Often, without even realizing it, their language, words, and ways become ours.
Think of young eighteen-year-olds entering college as freshmen. For many, if not most, their professors will exert an enormous influence on shaping their perspective on life and the world around them, and not always for good.
Back to what I said - our churches are filled with anything but disciples of Jesus. I know this sounds harsh, but I must insist it’s true. Far too much teaching in our churches today is linked to particular doctrines or philosophies, many of which, even if biblically based, are not linked to or rooted in the person of Jesus. And make no mistake about it, we are called to be disciples of Jesus; we are called to follow and learn from Him.
Whose disciple are you? I can assure you that you are following someone, some philosophy or way of thinking and living.
As a teacher, I want to follow The Teacher, learning to live as He lived, and learning to treat others as He treated others, learning to love as He loved. And as I follow Him, I know that my teaching will reflect His heart, and I will be able as the apostle Paul was able, to say to my students, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” And that is ultimately what Jesus meant when He charged His first disciples to “go and make disciples.”
In Christ,
Dan
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