I'm deeply saddened by the paltry commitment to discipleship in the modern church, aren't you? This is what discipleship looks like to many of us American Christians:
1.) Go to church on Sunday (goal: try and do this more than 50% of the time), sing a couple songs and listen to a 30 minute "light pep speech" about life with a carefully selected Scripture verse or two sprinkled in.
2.) And maybe - MAYBE - if you're REALLY serious about your faith, attend a bi-weekly home group every once in a while (summers off, please) where we all sit around with the primary goal being the avoidance of any and all controversy.
Let me just say unequivocally, it is impossible to learn to be satisfied in Jesus and therefore bring glory to God and fulfill the purpose for why we're even alive if that is the extent of our discipleship. This depiction of discipleship is not only miles away from Jesus' depiction of discipleship, but it may just be the polar opposite of it.
If we want to know his joy and if we want to be used of Him, we must aggressively pursue discipleship. That means constant reading, constant listening to sermons, constant exposure to your local church's teaching ministry, constant fellowship with believers, constant private meetings with Christian leaders and mentors who can challenge us and build us up, and constant spiritual discussions with our families and friends. It means going to conferences and choosing to think throughout the day.
This is what the early church did: "And they were continually devoting (present tense continual) themselves to ... the apostle's teaching" (Acts 2:42). James says, "Whoever looks intently into the perfect law ... and continues in it ... he will be blessed" (1:25). The blessed person in Psalm 1 is described as being a person who meditates on (ponders) God's Word "day and night" (v.2). God told Joshua that the only way he'd ever be prosperous and successful in life is if he pondered Scripture every day, all throughout the day (Joshua 1:8).
You don't necessarily have to have a Bible in your hands to do this. You just need to be thinking about biblical issues as you drive, as you eat lunch, as you do housework, etc. Indeed this informal approach to discipleship was the very pattern established by God in Deuteronomy 6 when he said to the Israelites: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (vv.6-9).
You see, when Jesus said that we were to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, he wasn't saying, "But the really important thing is for you to love me with all of your heart!" No. We are to love Jesus with all of our mind. Unless our minds are changed, our hearts will never be changed. This is where all transformation begins - the mind. The reason the church is so paltry today? Because discipleship is so paltry.
Someone might say, "But that's a lot of learning! Do I really need that much?" Absolutely. Just do a search on the word "remind" or "reminder" sometime. You'll see how the writers of the Bible inundated their churches with a constant flow of truth. Listen to what Peter said, "Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder ” (2 Peter 1:11-12). Peter says, "You know this stuff already and you're already been established in these truths." So why say them again, Peter? Because getting truth inside of us is like pounding a nail in a hard piece of wood. The first shot isn't enough. You've got to hit that nail a number of times before it fully sinks in. The same thing is true with truth. There needs to be a continual exposure to a truth for it to get inside of us.
And that's the most important thing - getting truth inside you. Many of us have truth around us, but not in us. Self-deceived pew warmers who are in bondage to religion have lots of truth around them, but not inside them. Listen to what Jesus said, for example, to the Pharisees: “... and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent” (John 5:38). Listen to the apostle John: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ... If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10).
As Jesus said in the above passage, this isn't just accomplished by listening to the truth, but through believing it. Therefore I would be remiss if I didn't add this final exhortation: Let us continually ask ourselves, "Am I really believing this, or am I just hearing it?" But the main point for this blog post is to convince us of the importance of constant nourishment. His Word is food. Let us be known as Christian Hedonists - people who joyfully gorge ourselves on the bread of life.
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