I thought the best place to start this article was to consider the question, “What do we intend for our lives when we talk about growing deeper in discipleship?” That is an incorrect point from which to begin. The starting place is this: “What does God intend for our lives?” A disciple of Jesus is one who trusts that his answer to that question is the only reliable answer. It stands to reason that if I can trust this Jesus for the life that comes after dying, I should also trust him for the living of these mortal days. Living as Jesus teaches and demonstrates, we trust that we will find ourselves living life as God intends.
Growing in discipleship obviously begins by gaining knowledge of what the teacher intends. We might think of it as enrolling in a course. What objectives does Jesus give in the syllabus for this course? In the 5th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus puts the objective before us in metaphor:
- To be the salt of the earth,
- To be the light of the world,
- To be a lamp giving light to the room,
- To be a city on a hill in plain view.
All of that to say we are to stand out in the world as something different from the ways of life men contrive for themselves. Something different and therefore inviting. That difference, as Jesus teaches, is most definitively recognized in the attitude and behavior displayed by self-giving love.
34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Loving one another certainly would require us to grow together. Aside from that, it does seem simple enough that it should not be that “deep” of a thing to grow into. Then again, the directions in which Jesus extends himself in love surprise us sometimes. I look at the extent to which his expressions of love extend and to whom those expressions are extended. Sometimes it feels a little beyond what I want to do, where or to whom I want to go. The thing is, if I am going to insist on calling myself a disciple of Jesus Christ, I’m going to have to keep trying. What a blessing it is to have sisters and brothers in Christ trying at the same thing; shooting to hit the same mark. Together we find support, encouragement, and accountability. Together we journey with one question: What does the Lord ask of us?
May we, together, grow in depth of understanding of who and what Jesus teaches us to be. And may we, together, also grow in depth of desire to love as far and as a wide as the Teacher has demonstrated.
“46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built” Luke 6:46-49
May we always build well, together.
Pastor Joe