Walking the Path: Essential Qualities of a Good Disciple
Published: January 20, 2025
In this episode, we'll explore the concept of what makes a good disciple. We'll discuss the characteristics that define a good disciple, emphasizing the importance of following, leading, and being willing to follow Christ's teachings. The conversation looks into the challenges of discipleship, the significance of spiritual growth, and the impact of a disciple's actions on their community. The hosts also touch on the role of mentorship and the importance of being open to learning and correction.
Key Takeaways:
- Humility and Obedience: A good disciple is characterized by their humility and obedience to God. They are willing to submit to God's will and follow His commandments, even when it is challenging.
- Spiritual Growth: Continuous growth in faith and spiritual maturity is essential for a disciple. This involves regular study of the Bible, prayer, and actively sharing your faith.
- Impact on Community: Discipleship is not just about personal growth but also about influencing others positively. A good disciple leads by example and contributes to the spiritual growth of those around them.
- Mentorship: The role of a mentor is crucial in the journey of discipleship. Learning from others who are more experienced in faith can guide and shape a disciple's path.
- Openness to Learning: A good disciple is always open to learning and correction. They recognize that discipleship is a lifelong process of learning and growing closer to God.
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Transcript
Welcome back to another episode of Equipped for Purpose. Today we are going to be talking about what makes a good disciple. This is one of those topics that is foundational. We need to lay the foundation for what a disciple is, what discipleship is, and how to make disciples.
I just want to be clear, I don't have all of the answers, but this is a base. This is a place to start from. I would never claim to have all the answers, to know it all, to be able to say definitively this is the final say on what makes a good disciple. Just keep that in mind, this is a base. That's what we're starting with here today. I wanted to make that clear right up front.
One of the things that we're going to be covering today is being a good follower. We have to understand what it means to follow as a disciple. At the same time, we're also going to be talking about being a leader because there is that tension there of being both a follower and a leader as a disciple. Then we're going to look at some examples of disciples, really about some different attitudes, and looking at those we'll answer the question, who is called to be a disciple?
Let's get right into this, when we talk about being a follower, there are some different things that we look at and that aspect of being a disciple is the behavior that comes with that.
When I think about behavior, I look at values. What is it that you value? You can look at any company or corporation, they're likely to have things that they value. They'll have some documents or posters put up that say, we value this. One of those may be communication. They may value something like that, but what does that mean in action? This is something that is called fundamentals and I wish I could remember the book off the top of my head, but there's a book about this that you can say you value something, but if there is no behavior that backs up that value, if you can't define what it means to put that value into action, then do you value that thing? What does the behavior look like that demonstrates that value in action?
Your actions, demonstrate what you believe. You can say you believe something, you can say that you're a follower of Jesus but do your actions demonstrate that? Do your actions in public demonstrate what you practice in private?
There is a visible facade. You can look out at the Christian landscape right now and you can see the facade that's put on for actions in public. Do you think those same actions demonstrate what is practiced in private? Well, we've certainly seen through many scandals that that's not the case. Now be honest with yourself. Do your actions in public demonstrate what you practice in private? Do those actions truly demonstrate what it is you believe? Because it's your actions in private when you know that no one's watching, those are the actions that are going to back up what it is you believe in that outward demonstration.
This is something that we have to be keeping in mind. We can't have this mask on when we're out in public that demonstrates something different than who we are in private. That's a dual nature and that's not part of who we are as Christians, who we are as followers of Jesus.
When we call ourselves His disciples, His followers, there's not going to be a difference between private and public actions. There is a boldness and courage that comes along with that, both in private and in public.
Okay, so that's values, those actions you take, what it is you say you value. If you value following Jesus, then your actions are going to demonstrate that. You should be able to define what that action looks like and find that your definition is backed up with Scripture, but we're going to talk more about Scripture here in a few minutes.
One of the things that is often overlooked in the behavior of a disciple is sacrifice. We hear a lot of calls to salvation on a Sunday morning in a church service that only wants to paint a good picture of what it means to follow Christ. There is a lack of communication that does not convey the sacrifice that comes along with that. It doesn't convey that there will continue to be hardships in life.
Salvation doesn't overcome that and moves you to some mystical place where there are no more problems, where there are no more hardships or issues that come up in life. That just wouldn't be honest to say and, unfortunately, salvation is often portrayed in that picture.
You can't truly count the cost of the decisions you're making and the actions you're about to take if we don't take a full scope of what that means. I don't want us to forget the behavior of sacrifice.
I want to read Luke 9:23-26. This is Jesus talking.
23 And He said to all, if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
We cannot forget this call from Jesus that says ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’ We have to be understanding of the fact that there is a sacrifice that will come. Following Jesus does not bring about someplace where there is no more sacrifice because there are relationships that are not going to make it beyond your decision to commit your life to being a follower of Jesus.
There are going to be things that will be stripped away from your life. The Holy Spirit will highlight something and you will know, ‘Hey, I need to move away from this thing,’ or ‘I need to stop doing this thing,’ or maybe it's ‘I need to start doing this over here,’ which causes friction with somebody, or friction in something that you're already doing.
There's going to be a sacrifice there. You're going to have to make a choice. ‘Which path am I going to follow?’ With that, we need to understand that we are being guided by the Holy Spirit in this. So there is a choice that needs to be made. ‘Am I going to be self-empowered here?’ ‘Am I going to look to self-empowerment or am I going to look to Spirit-empowerment or being Spirit-filled?’ You could ask yourself, ‘What or who is guiding me in this decision?’
I say I value being a follower of Jesus. I value scripture. I value prayer. Do your actions demonstrate these things? Does it show that you are empowered by the Spirit or guided by the Spirit? Or, are you self-empowered to do this on your own? This is an aspect of following Jesus, the behavior that we display, that we engage in. This is just simply another word for the actions you take.
What does that look like? The next piece that I want to look at is the disciplines we engage in. What does that mean? What am I talking about here, disciplines? This isn't about being disciplined by God. This is about the disciplines, those things that you do daily, not as a habit, but as something more intentional. If you do something long enough, it becomes a habit; It becomes something that's just done automatically over time. Well in disciplines, we want there to be more intentionality in what it is that you're taking action on. That's what we're talking about with disciplines here.
The first one of those I mentioned a minute ago was prayer. This is a discipline of discipleship that needs to be not just simply a daily part of life, but in every aspect of life, every aspect of your day, prayer should be a part of that. This doesn't have to be some super spiritual or religious thing. You could be sitting there, silent, with your eyes open, going about your day, but stopping and taking a moment to say a prayer. Offering thanks, asking for strength or wisdom or guidance, or praying over an event you're passing by. These are all things that prayer is about. It's not just simply something we do in quiet time.
This should be part of our daily lives and so intertwined that it is something we can recognize ourselves doing intentionally over and over again. Again, this isn't something that we want to just be a habit where it's just done automatically without thinking about it. That's not what we're talking about with these disciplines. This has to be intentional. I see something. I recognize something that I want to talk to God about, and I talk to Him.
The next discipline I want to talk about is the study of scripture. This is one of those things that Christians in particular talk about extensively, which is scripture, is being in the Word daily and studying. But we are in a time where biblical literacy is at an all-time low. People just don't know the scripture anymore. There are quotes that people will use and attribute to the Bible, and it's not in there. Or they will think they know what a passage says, but it doesn't say what it is that they were remembering. If we were in there every single day and at a minimum just reading, we would have a better understanding and a better literacy of what is in scripture.
What we're talking about now, when looking at that intentionality of the study of scripture, is going beyond reading. This is where we're getting into the text. We're starting to look at those cross-references. We're starting to look at the study notes if you have a study Bible, or finding a commentary online, eventually maybe even getting into the original languages. If you can get there, great. If not, though, we do need to make it into the study that goes as far as we can.
This is going to take an investment, not just of time, but you may decide to invest a little bit of money to get some of these resources that help you get deeper into what the Bible is talking about, and how it is referencing itself. There's no other collection of books on the planet that you will find that references itself more than the Bible does. How are the writers in the New Testament using the Old Testament? How are they referencing that? What are they saying and what are they seeing that is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy?
When Jesus is doing things or saying things, there is a surface-level meaning that we can see. There is a meaning that would have had something more to it, to His direct audience in the first century. And there would have been a better understanding of what was going on in the mind of an ancient Israelite in that first century than we are now, even 2,000 years more, removed from that.
We talk about the study of Scripture as disciples, but the one problem I'm seeing is that we aren't even getting to the point of just reading it daily; of reading the Bible every single day. Even just finding some reading plan and starting to do that, that is a great start. Remember these disciplines, they are about intentionality. We need to remember the intentionality of studying Scripture.
I want to read a little bit to you out of Psalm 19:7-11.
7 It says, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them is your servant worn, and keeping them there is great reward.
In verse 7 it says, The law of the Lord is perfect. Now understand when this was written, what they were talking about in the law, this is the Torah, those first five books of the Old Testament. That was their Scripture, that's what they studied, that's what they read, that's what they memorized. They devoured it, they loved it, and it was desired more than gold. They saw it as sweeter than honey. We want to talk about valuing Scripture, do we value it that much? Do we value it more than fine gold? If we say we do, our actions would bear that out in everyday study, in everyday reading. We would set aside some intentional time to study.
The last thing I want to talk about in disciplines is sharing the Gospel, that is sharing your faith with other people, having conversations about Jesus, having conversations about Scripture, and having conversations about prayer. These are all things you can do within a community, but even spreading beyond community to sharing the Gospel with people that haven't come to a place where they are placing their believing loyalty in Jesus Christ as their Savior. That is the Great Commission, that is fulfilling that. We are making disciples of the nations when we share the Gospel of Christ with others and see them come into the family, see them say, yes, I believe in Jesus.
There are just three disciplines that I'm talking about today within the base of what I believe makes a good disciple, prayer, study of Scripture, and sharing the Gospel, or sharing your faith. These are just three baseline disciplines, three baseline things that we should be carrying intentionality into. Yes, they are similar to habits because these are things we are doing daily. The difference, remember, is intentionality. And yes, I've said that over and over, but it bears repeating because we need to keep that in mind.
As we build up these disciplines in our lives, we have to understand that we are being intentional about them. We aren't just letting them go and reading on autopilot and not taking in what it is that we're seeing. We're not praying on autopilot and not making a connection with the Lord. We're not entering into these things and becoming more intimate in that space with Jesus without intentionality.
Something else here that I want to close out talking about is being a follower, and this discussion of being a follower is about attitudes. So we talked about behavior, we talked about disciplines, let's talk about attitude now. This is how we respond to the assignments that God brings to us in places before us inside of fulfilling the Great Commission. Yes, we know that we have the Great Commission. ‘Make disciples of the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, teaching them the things that Jesus taught.’ But the attitude that we carry into that is something that we have to look at. We have to understand and own our attitudes. We have to own the attitude that we carry into this.
We know the Great Commission, and I mentioned assignments a minute ago. Assignments are, ‘Okay, God calls me here, and in that calling is where I'm going to fulfill the Great Commission.’ Now, if you are gifted in a certain area of business or whatever that looks like, that's likely an area that God is calling you into. This is the place where you are fulfilling the Great Commission, whatever that is.
Recently I read a book called Not a Fan, talking about the difference between being a fan of Jesus and being a follower. A fan, you can think about it like this. Say you there is somebody you admire on social media or TV, you know a lot about, but you don't know them personally. You are a fan, but you're not a follower, because a follower is going to make sacrifices in knowing that person on a deeper level. There are going to be those actions taken. Knowing a lot about someone doesn’t make you a follower, it just makes you a well-educated fan. You're going to see this played out and demonstrated in life, such as the disciplines we discussed earlier in following Jesus.
In that book, some questions came out of that in direct relation to talking about attitudes. And I think this is great in terms of being a follower because God's going to say, what about over there? So if we're telling God, hey, ‘Wherever you want me to go, I will go to fulfill this Great Commission.’ When he says, okay, ‘What about over there?’ What's your response? Sometimes that's a hard question for us to ask, or a difficult statement to make to say, ‘God, wherever it is you want me to go to fulfill the commission that you gave right before you ascended back up into heaven, I will go.’ Because we don't know what it is that's going to be asked of us. So it is a bold and sometimes difficult thing to say, ‘God, wherever.’ When he says, what about over there? What's your response? What's your attitude to that? Is it still wherever?
What about whenever? ‘Whenever you want me to go, God, I will go.’ What if the response is, ‘What about now?’ Right now? You're walking through the grocery store, you see somebody, and you feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray for that person. So this is a wherever, whenever moment, right now. What about now?
The last of these attitude statements to make is, whatever. ‘God, whatever it is that you want me to do, whatever assignment is that you have for me, I'll do it.’ And he says, ‘What about that? What about that right there?’ ‘Yes, God.’ Is that your response? Is that your attitude to quickly go and be obedient to that?
I understand there are certain things, like if you feel called to be a missionary and go to another country or another continent, there needs to be some prayer and preparation that goes along with that to truly understand what it is that you're being called to. But is your attitude still wherever, whenever, whatever? That's the attitude of a disciple. So when we look at being a follower, we're talking about those behaviors, those things that we say we value, what do those look like in action? Are we taking seriously the disciplines of discipleship, prayer, the study of scripture, and sharing the gospel? Are we having the right attitude that says wherever, whenever, whatever? These are all aspects of following Christ that we need to be paying attention to.
With that, the other tension of discipleship is leading. Because yes, we need to be good disciples to be able to make disciples. And so at the same time that we are following Christ, we are also leading others to follow him as well. We're not leading others to follow us. We're not making disciples unto ourselves, we're making disciples unto Christ. But there is an aspect of leadership within that.
The first piece of that is replication. When we are fulfilling the Great Commission, we are replicating disciples. That's the first point of what makes a good disciple in leading is that there's replication. We're seeing people come into the faith and professing believing loyalty in Jesus, and that there's longevity behind them. We're seeing growth and maturity come into this person. We're starting to see them transform and looking to replicate as well. That's the first aspect of what we're talking about when it comes to what makes a good disciple in being a leader, is replication.
The second is listening. Now, it goes without saying in being a follower of Jesus as an aspect of discipleship, listening, of course, is a trait that is there. But it's not always common for leaders to be good listeners. When you are leading people and you are thinking about replication and multiplying, bringing in more people to discipleship, we have to be listening, and not just listening to their stories, not just listening to what it is that they're saying, or what it is that is underlying what they're saying. We need to be at the same time listening to the Holy Spirit for guidance.
Now, you know, not everybody is the same, so not every person is going to respond the same or go through a program or system at the same pace. People pick up on things at different rates. It's just reality. You can see it in school. Grasping concepts in different things and understanding and connecting, this all happens at a different pace, and so not everybody can be just put through some cookie cutter system or program and say, okay, this is how it's going to go. Whether they go slower or faster through that program is irrelevant. It is still the same cookie-cutter program.
This is where being a leader who is listening and being guided by the Holy Spirit is one that is going to be more effective because you're going to be able to hear what it is the Holy Spirit is saying and be able to come to a place with that person that brings them into transformation. You're going to be able to give them the right guidance that you're getting from the Holy Spirit.
This isn't self-empowered. This is Spirit-empowered guidance. Being a leader, this is what we're talking about when we talk about the aspect of that of listening. Yes, we're listening to that person. They need to know that they're being heard, but at the same time, we need to be listening to, and in tune with what it is that we are hearing the Holy Spirit say.
There has to be that connection with the disciplines that we are entering into as a disciple each and every day. Those intentional moments, they're preparing you for these moments to lead. When there is a difficult situation that's taking place, you are already listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying to bring mature and kingdom-backed guidance to this person. That's what we're talking about in listening.
The third aspect I want to bring up at the base level about being a leader inside the discussion of what makes a good disciple is accountability. I can't stress enough what it means to be accountable to another.
We have to understand that there are different levels of accountability. We are not just being accountable to someone you could say hierarchically above us. Yes, there is that aspect of accountability, but at the same time, we are accountable to those who we are leading. You have to know, ‘Hey, this is what it is that I'm doing here. This is what it is that I'm bringing, and trying to pull out. I'm going to be here for you in this.’ There is accountability there because you are putting on display your discipleship disciplines for this person. There's an accountability there.
There's also accountability coming from above you, or adjacent from elders in the church, whatever that looks like. There's an accountability there that says, ‘Yes, I'm doing the right things with these people or with this person. I'm leading in a way that is going to bring glory to Jesus.’ That's what we're talking about in accountability. The aspect of what makes a good disciple and that tension that's held between follower and leader.
When we're talking about leaders, looking at the base, just the base things, again, is not the end all list here with what I have highlighted in replication, listening, and accountability. Those are the three things that I think make up a good base for someone who is a disciple and who is taking that step into leading. Which is fulfilling the great commission. We talked about being a follower and a leader, now I want to look at some biblical examples.
The first one is Elisha and I want to read 1 Kings 19:19-21. It says…
19 So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yokes of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.
20 And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you. And he said to him, Go back, for what have I done to you?
21 And he returned from following him and took the yoke of the oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.
This is Elijah coming and calling Elisha out to be his disciple, to be able to train him and bring him into what it is that he was doing. And what was Elisha's response? Let me kiss my mother and my father, and then I'll follow you. That was his response. So he said these words, ‘Yes, I'm going to go, say bye, and then I'll follow you.’ Those were the words but then came the action that backed that up, and the action was he returned, took the yoke off of the twelve oxen he had, lit those yokes on fire, sacrificed the oxen, and boiled their flesh on the burning yokes that had held them together, that they were to plow the fields with, and he gave it to the people and ate.
Elisha's response was, ‘Let me go say bye, and then I'll follow you.’ The action that backs that up is that he sacrificed the oxen on the fire of the yokes that held them together. So that is, ‘I'm not going back.’ This is the action that says, ‘Yeah, I'll follow you, because there's no going back.’ The animals and the equipment that were used to help him produce from the land were gone. There was no going back for him. This is the action that bears out those words, that says, ‘Yes, I value this call from you, and I will follow you.’ The wherever, whenever, whatever attitude was there. And so he followed.
The second example I want to look at is from the New Testament. Matthew 4:18-22, it says,…
18 While walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
20 Immediately, they left their nets and followed him.
21 And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
22 Immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him.
This is an interesting story, and it's one I love to consider because we see Jesus call these men and immediately they drop their nets and follow him. We know that Jesus was called a rabbi. That's how people refer to him often, rabbi.
There is something we need to understand about this story and what it meant for a Jewish boy to be called to follow a rabbi. At a very early age, Jewish children were set apart and trained to study the Torah. This is what they did, and the goal was to memorize the entire Torah, those first five books that we have of the Old Testament, to memorize them. I have a hard time memorizing things, so I can't imagine memorizing these entire books here. But some did that. A very small percentage, though, did this.
At the end of that time of study, I can't remember what the ages were, but at the end of that time, if they had all of these books memorized, they were called by a rabbi to come follow him and to go deeper into the scriptures and start to memorize the rest of what it is that we have as part of the Old Testament, the prophets. And so it was a big deal to be called to follow a rabbi.
We have to understand that aspect. These men are fishing, which means that they likely didn't make the cut at an earlier age to be called for continued study. They couldn't memorize the whole of the Torah. Maybe they had part of it, but they didn't get the whole thing down. They went back and they followed in their father's footsteps to become fishermen.
When we see this scene where Jesus shows up and he calls these men to follow him, the father mentioned here is Zebedee, I can imagine that he was elated. ‘A rabbi is calling my boys to follow him.’ This is a big deal. This is something that was sought after. This was something that Jewish boys and Jewish parents wanted to have happen for their children. It meant something to be called by a rabbi to follow him, to study the scriptures, to go deeper.
To see this scene, we have to look at it with a different mindset and not look at it so much in our current reality of Western thinking or wherever it is you live. We have to understand what it meant to the people of the first century when Jesus was walking the earth. We have to understand that what it meant to be called to follow a rabbi was a big deal. And these men did not hesitate. They dropped their nets and they followed him because they knew they were being called into something deeper.
Those are just two examples and it demonstrates value in action. It demonstrates that wherever, whenever, whatever attitude, it opens them up to get into the disciplines of discipleship because they're about to be taught. And there's a continual teaching going on for us as well in these disciplines. So we need to remain open to that. We can see what it looked like for them because we have the scriptures to read. Now, we need to understand what that looks like for us.
Who is called to be a disciple? This is a question that we think is easy to answer and it really is easy to answer. The answer is anyone. It's an open invitation. Just like salvation is an open invitation, so is the call to be a disciple.
I believe that being a disciple is a mandate. It is not optional for those of us who say we are followers of Christ, who call ourselves by the title of Christian; discipleship is mandatory. That's my personal belief. I don't see anywhere in the Great Commission when I read Matthew 28:18-20, that there is some set apart group of people for this call, or an exclusion in there that limits it to some people. Anyone can be a disciple.
The problem is that sometimes we gatekeep that. We must ask ourselves, ‘Are we holding the door open for people to come in and be disciples?’ Are we gatekeeping and rejecting certain people because we don't like an aspect of their lives or their past? And so for some reason, we deem them unfit for discipleship, unfit for inclusion into the kingdom.
People are carrying around a lot of hurt from those already in the church because we're gatekeeping based on our own set of morality and our own set of ethics, and we're forgetting those that Jesus dined with, who he hung out with, who he celebrated feasts with. Those same people today we exclude, we judge their lives rather than embracing them and loving them.
I'm not saying that we completely look away from lifestyles or choices that are sinful. There is going to be a transformation in people that moves them away from those things, but we have to allow the Holy Spirit to do that work in them. If all it is is gatekeeping and pushing these people away, that can't ever happen.
This is another point of sacrifice that we're going to talk about in the future, but it is about sacrificing reputation. We care too much about our reputation that we will exclude people from the church, from the kingdom, because what does it look like for me to associate with that person? What will people think? We care about our reputations when we stop and truly think about it. We'll talk more about that in the future, but this is something we have to understand when we are answering the question, ‘Are we holding the door open or are we gatekeeping?’
I want to read Matthew 28:18-20 because I think it's important when we're talking about what makes a good disciple, we need to understand the Great Commission that's been given to us.
Matthew 28:18-20 says…
18 And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
We cannot forget verse eighteen. Oftentimes when people talk about the great commission, they start at verse nineteen, but we cannot forget eighteen. ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,’ that is Jesus' words, which should mean something because right after that, he says, ‘Go therefore.’ Because he is holding all of the authority, he's telling us to go on his behalf, which means we're backed by that same authority. Go therefore because of his authority and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded us.
Then he's saying he's with us always to the end of the age. We must remember that there is an authority that backs up this commission that he's given us. Again, I don't see any exclusions in there that say, ‘Oh, this group of people, no, you're not called to discipleship, you're not called to replicate and make disciples.’ There's an inclusion of everybody there. This is why I believe that discipleship is mandatory for those of us who call ourselves Christian.
When we look at the word commission and just define that, it's the act of committing or entrusting a person, or group, with supervisory power or authority. It's also an authoritative order, charge, or direction, and can be an authority granted for a particular action or function. If we're calling this set of verses the Great Commission, that means we're entrusted with supervisory power and authority to make disciples of the nations, to baptize them, to teach them. There's an authoritative order, charge, or direction there; mandatory. This isn't an option. This is an order from Jesus.
I think we have to keep that perspective and keep that in view when we're talking about what makes a good disciple. We have to keep in view what it means to be a follower, those behaviors, the disciplines, the attitude. We also have to keep in view the other aspect of what makes a good disciple, which is leading. That's the base of replicating, listening, and accountability. We also need to be including people, holding the door open and not gatekeeping.
After listening to this, I want you to take some time to sit down and think about what it is that God has called us to as disciples, that Great Commission. Think about the assignments that he's given you, the place where you are now, and start saying, ‘God, wherever you want me to go, I'll go. Whenever you want me to go, I will. Whatever it is that you want me to do, I will do it.’ Start looking at that. When he says, what about there? Where is there? When he says, what about now? What does that timeframe look like? When he says, what about that? What is that thing that he's calling you to? When is that assignment that he's laying out in front of you?
I also want to know what you would add to the discussion of what makes a good disciple. My email address is in the show notes. Please send me an email or a DM on social media. What would you add to this discussion?
Thank you for listening, and if you are finding value in these episodes I would ask that you share this with someone you think would benefit.
I look forward to hearing from you.
About the Podcast
Equipped for Purpose
Equip | Develop | Empower
Equipped for Purpose exists to equip, develop, and empower followers of Jesus Christ to integrate deep discipleship with impactful leadership in every area of life.
The pillar of discipleship will explore being a disciple, making disciples, and the disciplines of discipleship. It will focus on being, knowing, and doing concerning being a disciple and making disciples. Regarding the disciplines of discipleship, there is a focus on prayer, the study of scripture, and community.
The pillar of leadership will explore developing the leader, developing team members, and developing a team as a whole.
I want you to know that my heart is to serve, and I want to serve you through this podcast.
The pillar of discipleship will explore being a disciple, making disciples, and the disciplines of discipleship. It will focus on being, knowing, and doing concerning being a disciple and making disciples. Regarding the disciplines of discipleship, there is a focus on prayer, the study of scripture, and community.
The pillar of leadership will explore developing the leader, developing team members, and developing a team as a whole.
I want you to know that my heart is to serve, and I want to serve you through this podcast.