What does it mean to be joyful? How can one have Joy? How do we even know that we want joy? Real Joy?
When I first noticed that there was a difference between happiness and joy was in 1986 after I lost my mom! At that time I didn’t have words to articulate my experience. I just knew that it was possible to be sad and happy at the same time!
I was sad that my mom was gone. I was confused about why she was killed by the robbers that killed her. But I was not sad deep down in my heart. Deep down in my heart, I felt that she was alright and I would see her again.
I’m sure that there are better ways to express what I felt but my conclusion is that the happiness that comes from the spirit (as opposed to the soul) is Joy! Real Joy!
This deep-seated unshakable joy came to me when I received Jesus as my savior and friend! It has stayed with me since then! But I have noticed a few things about this Joy!
Joy is a characteristic of the Kingdom of God (Rom 14:17).
Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22)
Joy overflows when a new disciple is born
Joy is available always. It never goes away. So you never lose access to this Joy (1 Thess 5:16).
Joy overflows when I obey an instruction of the Holy in my heart. Or when I successfully resist an attempt of the devil to trip that I was almost falling for! (John 15:11).
Over the years I have sensed this deep-seated real joy even when things were quite difficult in our lives. Don’t get me wrong. I still felt the pain but deep down there is this warmth and hope that is unshakable. It’s can be called peace or hope!
The joy was there when we had no money
It was there when the children were ill
It was there when I had a stroke in 2017
It was there when people said some mean and ignorant things to me or to Olu over the years.
It doesn’t leave! I’m grateful to God for this unexplainable Joy!
Here is my conclusion
When Jesus comes to live in us by the Holy Spirit, He comes with His Joy! Whatever makes Him makes us happy too but in our spirit. We are united with Jesus in our spirit (1 Cor 6:17).
If you want your joy to overflow always then invest more time into making disciples! New disciples make Jesus and the angels in heaven happy! (Luke 15:10).
Have you been used by the Holy Spirit to lead anyone to Jesus lately? If no, let show you how you have a lifestyle to makes disciples regularly. Take my free BiVo Ministers Course! The course is designed for you especially if you a busy professional, business person, or expert! You can make disciples for Jesus while you work! Register for the BiVo Minister Course now by clicking the bottom below.
What is our message as disciples of Jesus? What was the central message of Jesus? What was the central message of the apostles and early disciples?
A study of gospels show that Jesus taught mainly about the Kingdom of God. To further highlight this we learn after His resurrection He spent 40 days with the disciples teaching about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).
What about the apostles? What did they teach the most? The Kingdom of God? Yes! They taught about the Kingdom of God and Jesus the way to the Kingdom! (Act 4:2; Acts 5:20, 22; Acts 8:5, 25, 35; Acts 9:20, 22)
So what is your message? It should be the Kingdom of God and Jesus the only way to the Kingdom! In short form our message is Jesus!
But Jesus is a person not a concept or message! Yes! That is why our message should be clear that we are introducing the people to a person who is the Christ! Jesus Is the one who delivers us from our sins (self centered lifestyle).
To those who are lost, we preach Jesus the Saviour! When they receive salvation and forgiveness we teach them to allow Jesus to live in them just like we are learning daily! We also teach that Jesus wants to fill the earth with the glory of God!
How can we fill the earth with the glory of God? By making disciples of all nations! The message of the church is Jesus everywhere!
Remember that the church is the body of Christ. This means that the entire church is Christ Jesus! So when I say what is our message, it also means what is the message of Jesus? It’s is the good news of the Kingdom of God! Jesus is the way!
What are we really called to do as disciples of Jesus? How do you know that you are doing well as a disciple of Jesus? What is heavens bottom line?
Fruit! Yes Fruit! That’s what Jesus says in John 15. If a branch does not bear fruit it is useless (John 15:2).
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” John 15:8 ESV
What does Jesus mean by fruit? I believe it is Love. The type of love that took Jesus to the cross and brought salvation to humans!
Love that is an outflow of becoming a slave to God who is love. When Jesus lives through us, the outflow of His life is love. This love draws sinners to Him and they are saved!
In other words Fruit is love that produces salvation in people. A good disciple is one that multiplies Jesus every where by making disciples for Jesus.
This love is supernatural. It comes from God. This love is the Fruit of the Holy Spirit.
When was the last time you led someone to Jesus? Are you currently mentoring a disciple of Jesus?
Think about the testimonies we share at church. Think about the prayer points we write or share. What is the priority of the average Christian?
Remember that you can’t impress God with billions of dollars! Nothing you get on earth is worth anything in heaven!
If love that attracts people to Jesus is our priority then how much time do you invest in learning how to love like Jesus! How much time have you invested in loving your neighbors?
As I write this, I am asking God to help me invest more time and resources into what matters most to heaven!
If your life is not attracting other people to Jesus and your are not mentoring any disciples then please do not think that you are doing well. If you have a lot of money and influence and your influence is not attracting people to Jesus then you are building your own kingdom!
What should you do? Change your priority!Make salvation of souls and their discipleship your top priority! Devote time and resources to it! I can help with the first steps! Take the BiVo Minister Course and I will guide you to becoming a regular disciple maker for Jesus! Everyone you meet at work need Jesus! Let me show you how to help them!
There is no difference between a Christian and a disciple. A Christian is a disciple. The Bible says that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. (Acts 11:26). The two words refer to the same people.
However, there is a difference between a disciple and an admirer or a fan of Jesus.
An admirer of Jesus likes the teachings of Jesus as long as the teachings do not require then to change. Whereas a disciple lives by every teaching of Jesus.
An admirer is very happy to receive a blessing from Jesus but is unwilling to speak boldly about Jesus around people that are offended by Jesus. Whereas a disciple of Jesus, is confident that if anyone would meet Jesus, they would be greatly blessed and as such can’t help telling about all good things Jesus has done in them and for them.
An admirer, is always asking Jesus to do things for them and they sometimes get offended when there is a delay. A disciple is always asking what Jesus would have them do? The disciple is ever so grateful to be accepted as a disciple of Jesus. They are content to serve Jesus.
An admirer wants Jesus to make his life better. A disciple is amazed about how much they have in Christ Jesus already.
An admirer is not far from the Kingdom of God. A disciple is in the Kingdom. (Mark 12:34).
An admirer has many goals, ambitions, preferences, rights etc. A disciple has only one focus and goal. The one focus of the disciple is to do the commandment of Jesus to make disciples of all nations.
An admirer may claim to be a disciple or a Christian, but that does not make them so. A disciple may behave sometimes like an admirer but they get convicted by the Holy Spirit and repent in tears of sorrow (Matt 26:75).
An admirer calls a disciple a fanatic when the disciple makes the decision to leave everything to follow Jesus. A disciple is so happy to be called by Jesus that they gladly leave all to follow.
An admirer wants to follow Jesus with only minimal change to their lives. A disciple consciously accepts that their old life is dead and they receive a new one as slaves of righteousness.
Are you a disciple or an admirer? The Lord knows those that are his (2Tim 2:19). I have been convicted by the Holy Spirit many times that I am behaving like an admirer. I have repented each time and enjoyed greater fellowship with Jesus each time. I encourage you to repent if you are being convicted!
Who needs love the most? A nice, good looking person or a rough looking, angry looking person?
Most of us are more attracted to nice looking, kind and smiling people. And we tend to scowl at people who scowl at or are rude to us. My guess is that we are attracted to nice looking and smiling people because we figure that they would love us or they would not hurt us.
However, the truth is that, the people that need love the most are those who look rough, sad or angry. I believe they are feeling down because they are low on true unconditional love.
A lot of people around us are low on love. Even the nice looking, smiling person may be low on love. However, if they are still able to put on a smile, they may still have some type of love to run on.
Unconditional love is a desiring the best for the other without regards to how it benefits you. When we have a lot of this coming our way, we seem to have some of it to give out too.
So if we are ever going to see our world changed, we must load up on unconditional love. This is the king of love that God has for us. God loves you because He is God and He is love. There is no condition for the love of God.
As a disciple of Jesus, load up on love by spending time meditating of God’s love and connect with a mature believer who has practiced loving unconditional love. Then go out and love the people you meet without conditions.
When a person is low on true love, they will be very afraid to accept your love because they cannot be sure that it is without conditions. They may react in anger, push you away or raise up some invisibles fences.
If your love is unconditional, then you will keep loving them. Keep loving them. It may take up to a year or two or even five. Keep loving them. This is what Jesus want’s to do. We are His body on earth.
Of course all true love starts with prayer. Here is a sample prayer I use. Oh Lord please love John Doe through me today. He really needs some of the love you are pouring on me daily. I receive more grace to reflect your love to him. Thank you dear Lord.
Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalms 141:3 NKJV
I remember someone saying to me when I was younger that negative words are responsible for many of the wars in the world.
I’m not sure if that is exactly right but I know that my own misplaced words have caused tears for people that I love.
It’s better to keep quiet than to speak words that hurt. I also remember hearing someone say that any fool can say words that tear people down but it takes a wise person to say words that build people up!
Negative words create negative thoughts which in turn create fear and failure. God inspired words and prayers create positive thoughts and faith in God which in turn create success!
This prayer is a good prayer! I find that the Holy Spirit answers this prayer by restricting my speech and giving me new words!
My problem usually is saying things at the wrong time. I am so grateful that I have the Holy Spirit that has put a guard on my lips. Many times now, I just sense the Holy Spirit saying to me “don’t say that. Ask a question instead!”
As you continue on your journey of attracting people to Jesus, you will need words. Trust God that you will speak the right words! (John 12:49).
Love is a very interesting word because everyone seems to know what it means but it’s not really as easy to define as you would think. So when Jesus says “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31, Matt 22: 39, Luke 10:27) you wonder what does that really mean. In today’s article, I try to answer this question. I hope that after reading it, you would not only know how to love your neighbor as yourself but you would be loving your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus was not the first person to give this command in the Bible, this particular command was first mentioned in Lev 19:18 and it was quoted a few more times by the disciples of Jesus in (Rom 13:9, James 2:8, Gal 5:14). The most intriguing thing about this statement for me is that in combination with the command to Love God, it is seen as the summary of all the laws.
What does it mean to LOVE?
You do to others what you want them to do to you
You love people regardless of anything (unconditional)
You love them whether they reciprocate or not
You love them even when they don’t like you
You love them even when you don’t like what they are doing
You love them even when you bring them to justice
You love them enough to say NO
You love them enough to say Enough
You always love them.
Because
you could be them and
they could be you!
What does it mean to love?
I got my first definition of unconditional love from a book called Real Love by Greg Baer. If you have not read this book, I recommend it highly. Here is the definition I got from him with some modification.
Love is desiring the best for another person, without regards to what benefit you would receive.
I have since discovered that there is another side to that definition that would make it complete
Love is – Not withholding anything good from another person as long as they are willing to receive it.
So I see Love as a two-sided coin that has these 2 definitions. I have asked God to help me love like this for the last 15+ years. And I must tell you that I have failed a couple of times but all the same, the benefits are amazing. In a few words, what you get is peace and joy.
I know you may be so curious to know how, because you already know what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Please be patient because once the meaning of love is properly grasped, how to love flows automatically.
You Love your neighbor as yourself by desiring the best things for them.
This means you desire that they are at peace. You desire that they have all the money and resources they need. You desire that they are in good health and that they have a blissful life after this life on earth.
How does this play out? It means that when you think of the other person, you have good and prosperous thoughts about them.
True love starts from thoughts. You can love people you have never met. You can love people who don’t look like you. You can even love people who want to kill you because you can desire good for people who desire evil for you.
I know that this is possible because we see it first in scriptures (Luke 23:24) and also to some extent I have seen it in my life. I believe this is the state that God intended for all humans to live in. A state where we care so much about our neighbor that we are willing to make some sacrifice for them to move forward.
Take note that the first step in loving your neighbor as yourself does not have to do with action. The place to begin is in your thoughts.
Your thoughts about everyone around you should always be thoughts of how to help them be better, live better, be fruitful, have peace and joy.
It is not unusual to imagine that what this scripture is saying is that you keep doing good things to everyone around you until you get burnt out because their needs never end, there are some mean people out there and we all have limited resources.
But this is not what the scripture is talking about. Let me explain. Love should start with having positive, kind and loving thoughts towards everyone no matter how bad they are.
How can we do this? This is how I do it. I really believe that if I were to be in the shoes of any person, be born by their parents, go through the experiences they have been through and have the exact same DNA that they have, I would be them. So I really see others as if they were me just with a different skin and a different upbringing.
This really makes it possible for me to think positive, kind and loving thoughts towards mean and wicked people.
Don’t get me wrong, I still want those who need to be locked up, locked up. And I know that locking them up is sometimes the best thing for them and all the other people around them that I love equally.
You love your neighbor as yourself by not withholding anything good from them as long as they are willing to receive it.
How does this play out practically?
I have made up my mind that the best thing that can happen to anyone around me is for me to be well equipped to be of the uttermost use to them.
For example, if I have enough money to help someone with $5000. It is a good thing. But for me to have $5000 available for him means that in the past I had taken some actions on myself, that made it possible to save $5000 and have it available to help my friend.
This means then, that in order to love my neighbor and not withhold good from her, I must invest in myself much more than I invest in others today so that I can have a greater capacity to invest in other people tomorrow.
How do I love my neighbor as myself by investing in myself?
This means that I must connect properly with God my creator. That is why our Lord Jesus informed us that the first and most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with all…(Matt 22:37).
Connecting with God daily in prayers, repentance, meditating on God’s love and greatness, fellowship with the Holy Spirit and receiving instructions is the first and most important investment you can make in your life. This is so because connecting with God has both a natural and eternal benefit.
When I connect with God, I know that I am benefiting a lot but at the same time I know that I am being loaded with enough love to spread to my neighbors. When you are filled with love, you can share love.
When you are filled with love you won’t look down on another person because they are of another skin colour and when someone who is racist comes around you with contempt, you would be able to see past their hatred and see the evil that makes them do what they do.
After investing in your connection with God, you must devote time to always become better! Invest in personal development or growth in every area of your life. I have come to learn that this is a great way to help people.
When I don’t plan my growth (I learned this from John Maxwell), I won’t grow much and my value would not be much in many ways. I would still be valuable for company, and a few other things but imagine if I was much better at doing one thing and I have a lot of resources that I can draw from. Then I can always help at a higher capacity.
How do I love my neighbor by investing in them?
If I spend all my time developing myself and I don’t have any time to develop others, then I am withholding some good for my neighbor. There has to be a balance.
How do we draw that balance? Here is how I see Jesus do it. He gives the early mornings to connecting with God (personal growth) (Mark 1:35) and gives the afternoon and evening to the people. Then He gives the night again to God and sometimes all night.
What does that mean? We schedule our time with God and time for learning and guard it Jealously – Although we remain flexible enough for God to change our schedule. We also schedule a time to be available to be of help to people that God sends our way.
Do you have a schedule for your time with God? Do you have a schedule or growth plan? Please share with me in the comments section below.
How to love your neighbor as yourself – Non Christians!
We need to define neighbor for the purpose of this article. Like Jesus, I define neighbor as anyone that you get in contact with, such as people you meet at stores, your colleagues at work or school, poeple who live in the same community as you do and in fact every human being on earth 😀!
So how do you love people who do not see Jesus as their Lord and saviour or who do not even believe there is a God?
Desire good for them – what is the best thing that has happened to you? For me it is salvation. So I desire that every person I meet and in fact I desire that everyone on earth will accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Pray for them – I always pray for everyone around me and we do it even as a family. This should flow easily from the first point. When we desire a miracle for someone it automatically pushes us to ask the miracle-working God for a miracle.
Share with them – when we have prayed, we must not withhold the truth from our neighbors. Develop genuine friendships with them. We must share what we know with them. But we must do it in such a way that we do not violate their freedom. We must offer our love and knowledge of Jesus, not impose. We must always give room for people to accept or reject our offer of generosity. We know that as long as Jesus is in us, they are being exposed to His love through us anyway.
Continue to meet their needs as best as you can and learn what you can from them
Become better so you can help them better.
How do you love your neighbor as yourself- Other disciples of Jesus
We love them the same way.
Desire the best for them – the best thing is for them to have a better and more fruitful relationship with God
Pray for them – to have this relationship and to keep moving towards more joy, peace, love and obedience to God
Share all that you are learning with them without imposing on them
Continue to meet their needs as best as you can and also learn from them.
Become better so you can help them better
Partner with them to get even multiplied results
How do you love your neighbor as yourself ?- Someone Hostile
In this case we assume the person is not a believer and is hostile
Share with them mostly by your lifestyle as much s they can observe from your response to their hostility. I find that when I have a genuine loving thought in my heart for people that are initially hostile, they are sometimes shocked by my lack of reciprocal hatred.
Meet their needs when it happens that you are opportuned to.
Continue to become better
Take the necessary legal action if need be.
Some practical ways to love your neighbor as yourself
Prayer- there is nothing better than this
Listen to them (be hospitable and build genuine friendships).
When they have a need that you can meet, prayerfully meet it but don’t work alone. Invite a friend or family member at least for the prayers
Invite them for celebrations or for dinner at your home.
I am usually very careful with sharing things to do because I find that a lot of people want to rush to do something and then they get burnt out and discouraged.
God is love and love should originate from God. The first way for you to love your neighbor as yourself is to bring them into your special time with God. That is to pray for them. Do this a lot and as often as you can. Please always start here.
If you are a disciple of Jesus and you know deep inside you that Jesus wants you to attract other people to Him, then I encourage you to take my Free BiVo Minister course! I am sure you will want to share it with all your Christian Friends.
What would Jesus Do? If you want to explore this though some more, I encourage you to read the book – In His Steps by Charles Sheldon. This is one of the first books that started me on my life long journey of loving like Jesus.
Making disciples is the mission of every disciple of Jesus on earth. It is should flow out of our relationship with Jesus. I believe that the church can be a more formidable change agent on earth if only we can all be active disciple-makers.
In this article, I present 3 misconceptions about making disciples that are holding many children of God back today. As a BiVo Minister, knowing the truth will make you much more fruitful.
Making Disciples is mainly for Evangelists, Pastors, and Apostles
This is one of the biggest misconceptions that many disciples of Jesus have about making disciples.
I thought like this earlier in my Christian walk. I assumed that because evangelists and pastors were always winning many people to Jesus, it meant that they were gifted and called to do the work and other believers are just to support them with prayers and finances. And from time to time we invite people to listen to these pastors and evangelists.
This assumption is one of the reasons why many believers today have not led anyone to Jesus and have not discipled anyone despite the fact that they could have been saved for several years.
This misconception is very crippling for the body of Christ because in a church of 1,000 adult members you would find just a handful of gifted and full-time ministers. And in a church of this size, maybe you get 100 visitors every weekend. This means that the pastor only gets to use his gift to speak to 100 new people each week at the service.
If however, each adult member understood correctly that they are also called to make disciples, we get 1,000 adults potentially ministering to 1 – 5 people daily. That gives us 1000 – 5000 potential people reached daily.
I know that these numbers don’t translate directly to real life. However, as a pastor, I have come to believe that my work is to enable, encourage, and equip each member of the congregation to be active in making disciples daily.
I no longer measure the strength of a church by how many people are actively engaged in the activities of the church. I now measure it by how many members are actively engaged in making disciples.
Here is what Jesus has to say in Matt 28:18-20 – Go and make disciples. Then teach them to do the same. If you are a disciple of Jesus, you are a disciple-maker or what I call a BiVo Minister.
I don’t know enough to start Making Disciples
This is another misconception I had about making disciples. I thought that I needed to know a lot of scriptures before I could minister effectively to people who seemed to know so much about life and science etc.
Yes, it’s very helpful if you know scriptures but you don’t need more than the few scriptures that impacted you to start.
God set me free from this misconception by showing to me that there are many people who are in need of Jesus and are simply looking for someone to introduce Jesus to them. These people would ask more practical questions. Even if I am not able to answer some of the difficult questions, I can still love the people and let them know that Jesus loves them.
I can still remember when I would feel so deflated when I did not have a good answer to some of the questions that people had. And I would wish that no one would ask those difficult questions.
What I have come to understand is that when people have questions that I cannot answer, I can go and look for the answers for them. However, I must keep looking out for those who are aware of their need for salvation so that I can introduce them to Jesus.
You may not believe it, but there are so many people around you whom you may not know who are crying out for help and Jesus is the help they need. And you have Jesus.
In John 4, we see the story of a woman who had a need for a saviour. She knew that things were not alright with her morally and otherwise but she did not know how to fix it. Jesus was the solution. He showed her love and it transformed her.
The interesting part of this story is that she did not wait for long before she brought a lot of people to Jesus. It’s almost certain that there were some people who asked her some difficult questions but the important thing to note here is that she was able to bring so many to Jesus because she loved them enough to tell them the good news. (John 4:39-41)
Since I learned this lesson, I have enjoyed some very intellectual discussions with different people and I have led those who were ready to Jesus. Some of those who have questions I believe will still find Jesus because every encounter they have with a disciple of Jesus brings them face to face with the love of Jesus in one way or the other. Love you see, is not easy to resist.
So, my dear friend, it’s true that you may not yet have all the answers to all the questions that you will encounter as you attempt to share your faith with non-believers. One thing is sure. You have Jesus and you can share what you know. If you encounter someone that is not yet ready, then trust God that your encounter with them will move them forward.
It is not what you say that converts a non-believer to a believer.
In Luke 10:2 Jesus said to the disciples that the harvest is ripe. What that means for you and I is that there is a lot of work that the Holy Spirit has done in the lives of the people around us that makes them ripe for harvest.
As we encounter people, the ripening process is being done by the Holy Spirit. After a certain amount of contact and life experiences they become ready to be harvested for Jesus (the Holy spirit convicts them). What you say will only bring in those who are already ripe for harvest.
So don’t feel bad that a person did not pray the salvation prayer with you today. Continue to love them and look for more opportunities to present the gospel to more people. You will soon find someone who is ripe because that is what Jesus says and you may later find that the ones who did not believe at first are now ready to believe.
I know a few people who did not follow Jesus all the time we were in university who later received Him and are doing very well now. When we were witnessing to them then, they acted as if they would never get saved.
I don’t have enough time for Making Disciples
I think this one affects a lot of us today. It comes from the idea that making disciples is different from our regular lives and that we do it after doing “more urgent” or “more important” life issues.
It’s easy to think that getting food on the table is quite urgent and it must be done first before investing time in seeking and saving the lost people of God (Luke 19:10) like Jesus.
The fact that you have taken the time to read up to this point shows that you are interested in sharing the gospel, winning souls for Jesus, praying for them, and helping them to become fruitful disciples.
It takes time to make disciples
The truth is that it actually takes time to make disciples. It takes time to make friends that are not believers in Jesus Christ. It takes time to add value to people without any benefits to you other than the joy of blessing others. It takes time to pray for new believers who will make mistakes from time to time. It takes time to be there for people as they sort out their lives with Jesus. Discipleship has some costs!
What we sometimes forget is that although making disciples takes a lot of time, the return on investment is out of this world. The return on investment is not comparable with the investment. The eternal life that the new believer receives, the joy and blessings that the new believer will have and share with the people in his or her life, the contribution that the new believer will make to the work of making disciples cannot be compared to the time investment required.
I really believe that even if one invests 3 to 5 hour everyday for 40 years just for one lost soul to come home to Jesus, it is a very profitable investment.
You can always find time to make disciples
That being said, how then can you find time for making disciples? The first step is to realize and accept that making disciples is your first and most important call in life. It can and should be done as you live your life.
You can make friends at work, in your neighbourhood, at your children’s school and everywhere you go. Making disciples starts with loving people enough to share the good news with them. You can devote 10 – 20 mins daily to pray for the lost people around you. Then you trust the Holy Spirit to lead you and show you when to present the gospel to these people.
As a family, we pray for our neighbours and people all over the world who are not saved. We pray that God would give us the opportunity to present the gospel to them. We also pray that God will use us to show to everyone around us that He loves them very much.
In my own life, what I find that happens to me is that I get busy with urgent activities and I then realize that there seems to be no time to do what I know is more important.
If you are like me, what needs to be done is to consciously prioritize making disciples for Jesus, schedule it, pray about it and celebrate every little progress.
Here is what Dr John Maxwell has to say about making disciples as a lifestyle. There are lots of great tips in this message.
Conclusion
I have shared just 3 of misconceptions that I believe have held many believers back over the years and the truth that counters them. I hope that by reading this, you will become more relaxed and more aware of your role in the great work that Jesus is doing on earth. If you would like to learn how to make disciples with ease even with a busy schedule, I encourage you to take my free BiVo Minister Course.
Are there any other misconceptions you have overcome? Please share them in the comments below.
My guest today on the BiVo Podcast is a good friend. I have known him since 2010. Over the past 10 years he has completed his PhD and started his own company. His testimony would bless you.
Discipleship is simply the process of learning and imbibing the doctrines or philosophies of a specific teacher. In this case, it is the process involved in a person becoming like Jesus.
When I think of discipleship I think of apprenticeship but a lot more. Because as an apprentice, you learn a trade but as a disciple, you imbibe the teacher’s philosophy of life.
Who is a disciple?
A disciple of Jesus is a person who loves people like Jesus and does what Jesus would do.
Do you know that Jesus has put in place a spiritual system to help you access the same power, love, joy, and wisdom with which he operated?
Everything about Christianity is supposed to be about following Jesus and becoming like Jesus.
In a final instruction to the first disciples before Jesus ascended into heaven, Jesus commanded the disciples in Matt 28:18 to make disciples of all nations! They were to do this by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all the commandments of Jesus.
In other words, find people, share the good news with them, if they believe baptize them, and teach them to do all that I commanded you to do. If this is well done, the new disciples will be making disciples.
So you see now that every christian or believer in Jesus is expected to be a disciple of Jesus. And every disciple is called to Make Disciples.
If you would like to learn how to make disciples even as a busy professional, I invite you to take my BiVo Minister Course.
My first experience with discipleship
When I first received Jesus as my saviour and friend, I was so full of joy and I expected everyone to share in my excitement. But this was not the case. A few people were happy that I was happy and others couldn’t care less.
And soon, I found myself wandering away from the Lord and the truth I had received. Although I had begun the journey, I did not have a road map and I was just wandering along.
After a couple of years, I went to highschool and found a group of friends who were growing together in their faith and relationship with Jesus.
They had books, sermon tapes (audio), and they shared these amongst themselves. I was so happy to join this group. It was then that I really learned how to walk with Jesus and live for Him.
You can listen to my podcast interview with one of those high school friends called Dr Joe Omofuma.
What are the major characteristics of true discipleship?
True discipleship should lead the disciple into being like Jesus – A true disciple of Jesus is a person who loves God with everything and loves his or her neighbor as themselves.
Discipleship isn’t just learning some doctrines. It involves changing your previous philosophy of life and imbibing that of the teacher. This process would be different for each individual because our philosophies are also different.
So for us to agree that true discipleship is happening, the discipleship program should include:
Conversion and Baptism
Studies of Scriptures
Learning to hear from and speak with Jesus
Making of other disciples ( Repeating a-c above with other people)
The Cost of Discipleship
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and takeup his cross daily, and follow Me. (Luke 9:23 NKJV)
Jesus talked a lot about the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:27-29; Matt 16:25-26). As a lead pastor since 2005, I have found over and over again that there is a cost attached to following Jesus.
Jesus never hid the cost. In fact, He made a point of highlighting the cost to the disciples from time to time. I share some of the cost of my discipleship in this podcast (cost of ministry).
Sometimes, we do not want new disciples to know the cost of discipleship.
We feel that if we tell them that “your friends may make fun of you, you may lose your job, family members may not invite you to parties, you may be imprisoned, you may need to go into some dangerous places to find other lost people etc” that they would not want to continue.
What we forget is that when we first surrendered to Jesus, we did not care about all these things. We were too happy to be welcomed into the Kingdom of God to care.
It cost something to follow Jesus. However, it pays much more!!
What is the cost of discipleship? Your life! Discipleship costs your life. You would need to lay down your life and take up Jesus’ life.
The benefit of Discipleship
There are a few more passages in the Bible where Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship such as ( ). However, Jesus talks more about the benefits of discipleship.
What is it? It is the Kingdom of GOD.
When we follow Jesus, we get the Kingdom of God. We get to live the life of Christ. We become children of God. We also get set free from the bondage of sin and the consequences of sin.
As a disciple of Jesus, we really get to live like Jesus on earth. We can live a life that is full of love, joy, peace and the power of God over evil, sin and all the work of the devil.
This life is what is called eternal life. Eternal life starts here on earth and continues for all eternity with God.
Take note that Jesus does not promise us a life without challenges, trials or temptations. What He promises is peace even in the midst of the challenges of life.
In fact, Jesus kept on reminding his followers that the Kingdom of God is so valuable that one would gladly leave all they have so that they can receive the Kingdom.
For the last couple of Saturdays, we have been playing Monopoly as a family. The boys are loving it and we are happy that we get to teach them money and investment in a fun way. Monopoly usually takes a couple of hours, so we take photos of the state of things and continue on the following Saturday.
Why am I sharing this? Well the Lord reminded me recently that receiving the Kingdom of God is like leaving lots of monopoly money and riches, to get real riches in dollars.
Monopoly money is real in the game. It can do a lot in the game but it ends there. The truth, however, is that we live both in the monopoly game (1 hr a week) and in the real world. Anyone of us would gladly lose monopoly money to get real-life dollars.
Riches and fame on earth are like monopoly money. You can afford to lose them to gain real money which is like eternal life. The interesting part is that many times after letting go of your life, so that you can receive eternal life, you actually get a much richer and fulfilling life. You get what you were looking for in the first place.
What does discipleship Involve?
Learning
As a disciple of Jesus, you need to learn all that Jesus commanded. You also need to learn how to how communicate with Jesus. The primary learning material for a disciple is the Bible. It is a good thing for every disciple of Jesus to read through the Bible and have an overview of the redemption story from the creation of the world to the second coming of Jesus.
There are many ways to learn from the Bible. Some of them include, daily personal Bible reading, group Bible studies, reading of christian literature, regular attendance at a weekly worship service etc.
Just learn as much as you can learn and practice everything you learn. There is no use learning if one does not intend on practicing.
I have found in my life that, as soon as you begin to practice what you learn in scriptures, you begin to have opposition. This is why it is important to have a group of other disciples that you are connected with.
Repenting
Repenting is a big part of discipleship because, the Holy Spirit would use scriptures to convict you. You will find many things that you are doing that you shouldn’t be doing. You would also find many things that you should be doing that you aren’t doing.
As a disciple of Jesus and a BiVo Minister, I encourage you to repent as soon as you discover a sin in your life. I remember, when the Lord first started to teach me about unconditional love. I still get some lessons on it till this day.
The Lord would rebuke me a lot for my negative thoughts. When I would feel offended by what someone said or did. I would think something like, this person is wicked and mean. And the Lord would remind me that he or she is like that because they don’t know Him. I would have to say sorry Lord.
Not only would you need to repent for things you do wrong. The Lord would even correct you for things you did and thought were ok earlier in your discipleship process.
I remember the Holy Spirit, leading me to tell my dad that I had misplaced his Bible a few years back. The truth was that I had misplaced my dad’s bible and because I did not want to look foolish and careless, I had pretended to help my dad search for the Bible when he asked me about it. I had to tell my dad the truth.
As you develop your relationship with God, He will purge you of things that would be a problem for you now and in the future. Mine was pride and He has been dealing with it in me.
Reaching out
Every disciple of Jesus is expected to go out and find other disciples. You are expected to tell other people about what Jesus has done for you. Jesus calls us the light of the world. Every disciple should be in the ministry of making disciples.
Are there special people that can help other disciples on their discipleship path? No! All disciples are commissioned to teach as well. You are encouraged to share all you have learned with new disciples. You are also encouraged to introduce them to your church family.
However, it important to mention at this point that we are all called to help other believer grow. Are you currently helping anyone grow?
I hear a lot of believers complain that they don’t have the time. And for any believer that says that, I gently remind them that this is what we are here for. It is a priority. We need to make time for it. It is what Jesus came to do. I talked more about this in my article – Are You a BiVo Minister?
How is your discipleship going?
Remember that we are all disciples of Jesus. We are all being transformed into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. The situations, circumstances, trials, temptations, relationships and victories in our lives are being used daily by our Lord Jesus Christ to mold us.
What are you learning these days? How are you being transformed? True repentance is not usually a bad thing for a disciple of Jesus. As you are being transformed by Jesus, you will find a lot of things that you are doing wrong. Each time you repent and make amends, you step forward.
Lately our Lord Jesus has been challenging us that our church model is not making it as easy to multiply disciples for Him. He has been helping us to focus a lot more on discipleship.
I have had to repent for not doing this earlier. Although we focused on discipleship, many of the members of our church family had never led anyone to Christ, most are not helping anyone become a better disciple. This is not because we did not talk about discipleship, but we did not create a system that would make it easier for any member to make disciples for Jesus.
Are you making disciples?
Have you led someone to Jesus this year or in the last 2 or 3 years? I know that there are some who have never led anyone to Christ since they became a disciple of Jesus.
If this is you, don’t panic. I thank God that you read this blog up to this point. Making disciples for Jesus does not have to be difficult. You can even do it, with a busy schedule.
You can make disciples for Jesus even if you are not a big “people person” or extrovert. Usually, the reason that many disciples of Jesus do not make disciples for Jesus is because of limiting beliefs. If you change those beliefs, and take up biblical ones. You will find that within the next year or two, you will be discipling one, two or 3 people. In some communities you may be making disciples in 6 months.
I have created a video course on Making Disciples as BiVo Minister. It is a free course made possible by my partners. I strongly suggest that you check it out. Take the course today. It would really make a difference in your personal discipleship.
This is the summary of discipleship in the church. Every believer is called as a disciple of Jesus. Every disciple is commissioned to make disciples. And Every disciple is being discipled as long as they are on earth.
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