A Look At Discipleship

by Vicki Sullivan
Published May 9, 2008

Discipleship is not "conforming to traditional thinking or practices." If it were then Jesus would not have needed to be sent to save humanity from the sins of pride.

Discipleship is not a military program. If it were then God would have continued to lead the Jews using their government and military. Jesus would need not have suffered for the sins all humanity. Jesus would have established a military regime and not a band of disciples who were schooled in turning the other cheek until his forces arrived.

Love is not just obedience. Obedience can be wrong if it is obedience to any other than the Living God Jehovah whom Jesus called Father and Daddy. Love is not sticking in when the going gets tough. Hate in the form of lust of the flesh, passion, and obsessive compulsive pride often are thought of as love. But they aren't. Such people will hang on and suck every ounce of life out of another person then do a justification weeping at the funeral as though they were heart broken while folks comment, "how sincere they were in caring for the sick."

Love is having the power to live above circumstances. It is having the power to walk in the right pathway when all others are walking the other way. It is having the power not to scream when irritated or even tortured as some disciples have had to endure. Love is having the extraordinary power imbued into the disciple by the Living Lord Jesus to do the same miracles as did the Master and even greater ones. (This literally scares hell out of some and makes some more like the devil they serve). Love is living like Stephen when stoned and Paul when shipwrecked, starved, beaten, and still, in essence, they lovingly said, "Wait let me tell you about Jesus."

Love stills the waves and the winds of the storm tossed sea just as did Jesus when he literally spoke to the storm and it stopped. Love never ends. Love bears all and believes all. 1 Cor. 13! Love can even attach an sword sliced ear back in its place as through it was never removed. Love is faith in action. A lot of us have faith and action but but no action of faith. Faith and action is political and personnel. Action of faith moves mountains, heals the sick, and gives sight to the blind. This is the power imbued in the life of every believer if they will avail themselves of it and put Christ on the throne of their life.

Abundant living means living life with the power of Christ living in and through them. If you are not experiencing this power, check out your throne room. Ask yourself, "Who is sitting upon the throne of my heart? Me or Christ?"

God can and does restore brokenness in families by showing His love poured through His Son. This morning God brought the Words of Jesus to speak to my heart. His Spirit showed me what I believe Jesus was teaching in the lessons of discipleship.

Matthew 10 Jesus speaks to his disciples about priorities (discipleship). He gives them instructions for services, advises them of the struggles, and provides them the hallmarks of a life of discipleship. In this passage Jesus is not issuing a call for all people to become wandering disciples. He chose 12 men, discipled them, then sent them out to tell others how to attain the power to live life as their inner hearts told them was possible.

Christ taught heart principles...not necessarily strict patterns of how to go about a task.

In verse 37 he sets forth God's standard for love and service. It is not as the world loves or serves. It is as God loves and serves us. He uses the family model to set the pattern by stating our comprehension of love is less than Gods. He is NOT stating we are to love Him more than our families. He is making a comparative statement. He is stating how we are to love Him first and our families with the same love. It is by loving Him so much that we learn how to love our families.

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 ?And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 ?He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 10:37-39

These verses have been passed down and used against God's Kingdom and that is why the family is so split apart by the world even to this day.

The misunderstanding of these verses has given people reason to leave their families. It has made slaves for the world system and for religion. These very words of Christ have been used to make religious slaves out of humble believers, slaves to self and sin in marriages, and rebellious children who are leaving the faith by the millions. God said it through the prophet Hosea... "My people are perishing for lack of knowledge."

God set the standard that we are to love Him and our family with His Life in us pouring through us just as it did in and through Jesus. Read the whole chapter again and pray to see it with God's mind in you, the mind of Christ.

Jesus is speaking about new birth, spiritual birth and the life empowered by the Holy Spirit. When one is not living from the flesh one does cast out demons, heal, or preform the Works of Christ because Christ is doing the same through the believer as he did when here as The God-Man.

Once the father of a godly Christian girl child living in poverty set out to leave to join military service. His little child knelt and prayed, "Oh God please send my daddy home. We can't do without him." The father returned that evening. he'd been rejected for service. He wasn't a Christian. He didn't qualify for some reason. God in Christ hears the prayers of godly children. He saved this man because of the heartfelt prayers of a little girl child.

The verses in Matthew are not intended to be used as psychological tools to indicate how persons are to individuate from their families and leave home and grow up. These verses are indicative of the life lived in "The Way," as Jesus lived it.

Families were restored (Lazarus to his sisters), people are returned to their loved ones, bodies are brought back to life, disease,sickness and even malformation is healed, anger is resolved, etc. Look how it all makes sense if the Mind of Christ has been formed in you.

It is the verse used to justify hard heartedness on the part of those who refuse to comprehend Christ's teaching. Jesus was never!, cold, cut-off, or indifferent to Mary nor those of his family who remained loyal in their faith.

This pattern is seen in the world when those relationships take their natural course like in the animal kingdom. Look to nature to see the difference because Jesus is not living in animals.

Animals do not possess a rebirth of the life of Christ in them.

Nature is the teaching tool for the natural life. The appearance of Jesus on earth, God in Christ as a man, did set those relationships in opposition.

But, only for the purposes of contrast, not brokenness. Christ immediately goes on in verse 37 to draw all to himself in love which is higher than the natural or fleshly love of the world. The wordly tools sword divide but the love for Jesus draws together in a higher loyalty only those who recognize and refuse to bow to Baal.

Turn to Christ today, won't you? Let your hearts be softened. Take the risk. Risk all for eternal life. You won't be sorry.

Now, you go and write something like this yourself if you can. I challenge you!

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