If you’re a Christian then you are discipling people. It’s an irresistible fact. You can either embrace it and try your best, or reject it and not.
Grumpy Bulldog Taken from sxc.hu by Jenny Rollo
When Jesus ascended he left the instruction.
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
Jesus told us to disciple others so we should do it but more than that we don’t really have a choice, we can just choose to do it well or badly.
Good Disciples or Bad
Christians and Non Christians around us look to us for an example of Christ, we can either take up this responsibility or shirk it. If we take it up then we can show a good model of Christ, reflect him more clearly, and teach about him. We can be good disciples [I was going to write disciplers but really being a good disciple is being a good discipler] and live Disciplic lives.
Rejecting
Alternatively we can balk like an unbroken horse and protest. We can say that it is someone elses job, that we aren’t teacher, leaders or evangelists and so we shouldn’t do anything towards discipleship [despite the great commission being for us all]. Instead we read, hide in our rooms, and don’t speak about God at all.
You know that last sentence was really hard to write because it’s so rare. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen but really Christians who don’t speak about God at all are rare to find (and to be honest probably aren’t Christians. And should certainly be ready for God to not say he knows them). Really even the most undisciplic person in the world does some form of discipleship.
They talk about God, what they’ve heard about and more importantly from him. They reflect God in their actions to. They show his love to other people and people can see they are becoming more Christ like.
Sure it’s not always Rainbows and Butterflies (to quote Maroon 5) and there are days that are worse than others. In fact sometimes it’s really hard and Discipling isn’t always a two way street.
Complaining
Today I realised that I had got fed up with someone as I always felt that I was asking the spiritual questions and never having them asked back or even caring about where I was. But why should it be that way? Some people aren’t in the same place as you and need you to guide them along. It will be hard, probably have loads of set backs and can be very frustrating but life is like that.
I don’t want to end this with a negative thought of “Why aren’t I discipling someone.” or “I’m so ungrateful and don’t want opportunities.” Instead, think about this. You’ve been discipling people even when you weren’t aware of it. Now you can do it even better.
So, let’s embrace this calling, feed ourselves, other and the whole world and accept discipleship opportunities.
P.S. If you want to leave a comment why not write about a situation where you’ve been discipling people and haven’t realised it.
