Definition: the process of embracing the life and ethics of Jesus Christ because of the hope laid out in the Gospel.
There is no greater calling than to see people experience the grace and mercy of Jesus and then to begin to live that out. Our journey with Christ begins at salvation but our relationship with Him should continue to grow as we live out our life’s purpose!
We can all agree that discipleship probably looks different from church to church (not to mention from generation to generation). And yet, when Jesus gave the Great Commission to the disciples in Matthew 28, there are no statements of action (“go”) sprinkled with conjunctions (“but”). Now as much as we would like to add a conjunction, the Great Commission is very simple…GO and declare the Good News!
The first action that he told them was to go, and then he followed up with a second act of obedience on the believers part…make disciples. Pretty simple, RIGHT? We would probably all say, “not exactly.”
It doesn’t take long for you and I to see that “discipling” looks different depending on your background and teaching. And that’s where messiness enters the room because we spend so much time arguing about methods that we neglect the action of making disciples. We spend more energy pushing our own agendas instead of just “doing” discipleship.
Discipleship is about walking with people through their spiritual journeys, teaching them the Word and trusting the Holy Spirit to come alongside of us as we come alongside of them.
Lord, take us back to that moment when we accepted the call…the moment where we were willing to do whatever it took to reach people for Jesus, to challenge the status quo and most importantly obey the call “to make disciples.”
“Discipleship is messy but still mandated.”
Photo by ZapTheDingbat 
