Discipling Jesus’ Way

Matthew 28:19 says,

“Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

This is known as the Great Commission. He has asked His followers to make disciples all around the world, yet often we do not understand how to do this. How do we make true disciples of Jesus?

If we are going to make disciples of Jesus Christ, we must first learn from the great master disciple-maker Himself, Jesus, who spent vast amounts of His time in this exciting work of making disciples. In Jesus’ ministry, this was second only to the redemptive work of the Cross. When studying His life, it becomes apparent that He had many tools He used as He discipled the men and women who followed Him. Every tool had a unique purpose in fashioning and forming each follower to have special abilities, insights, motives, and priorities. If we are to make disciples, we must learn to use the same tools that Jesus used. These tools include:

• Prayer: Prayer was the first and greatest tool Jesus used to shape the lives of the men around Him. He prayed about His disciples, for His disciples, and with His disciples.
• Teaching: As we study the life of Jesus, it is easy to see that He was utterly consumed with God's Word. He was committed to transferring His Father’s words to His followers.
• Modeling: He showed them how to live, love, and work together with the Father. The disciples learned by watching Jesus. People learn more from what they see from us than what they hear from us.
• Friendship: Friendship is a tool in God’s hand. Jesus became the closest companion to those who chose to follow Him. He changed lives through being with His disciples!
• Doing the Work: While discipling His twelve disciples, Jesus constantly gave them practical ministry assignments. Being a follower of Jesus meant joining Him in life and work. Jesus’ discipling impacted their hearts, heads, and hands.
• Stretching Others’ Faith: Jesus constantly placed His men in situations that stretched their faith. Would they believe (trust) Him and believe (trust) the Father, or would they doubt? These faith challenges were life-transforming moments in the disciples' lives.

These tools show us that discipling is more than just reading the Bible together. All that Jesus did with His twelve men is summed up in spiritual fathering. Jesus was the perfect representation of the Father and God as our friend, but He never relinquished His fatherhood to us. Jesus related to and trained His disciples in the same way that a natural father relates to his children to bring maturity.

Often, we treat others as a “project”, but they are not projects; they are people! This is a disciple-making model called The Five Cups, or pillars, of making disciples. We are using “cups'' to symbolize the five major areas of all people’s lives that we should help them mature in and bring under the rule and reign of Jesus. Additionally, a good portion of our time with disciples is spent with a cup of coffee in hand, which always reminds us that we are in a relationship. Disciple-making is the process of filling each cup with the help of the Holy Spirit and seeing others come to maturity in Kingdom living. Let’s explore the five life categories.

Prayer:

Jesus, open our eyes to how You discipled those around You. Let us become greater disciples of You. Teach us how to create effective disciples for Your Kingdom, not just nominal Christians. Amen