Are you a Believer or are you a Disciple?

GCT:  Are you a believer or a disciple?  GCT, Jesus call us all to be disciples not just believers.  What is the difference?  Discipleship is costly!  Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is answering Jesus’ call to sit at His feet and learn from Him and change your life according to His teachings.  Discipleship involves repentance, obedience, dying to self, following, submission, sacrifice, worship, yoking with other disciples, leaving things behind, counting everything as loss compared to knowing Jesus Christ, and yes even martyrdom.  Do you find yourself today living to be a disciple?  

Jesus even gives a conditional statement of what makes a disciple in John 8:31, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.  Jesus puts expectations upon us, throughout the gospels, for what it takes to be His disciple.  Jesus calls each believer to be HIs disciple.  This Sunday we are looking at Luke 5, where Jesus calls His first disciples.  The very first calling of the very first disciples in the history of the church.  This is a beautiful picture of how Jesus calls us daily to persistent discipleship.  Jesus tells Simon after a long night of working in his fishing business after he did not catch a single fish to go back out and put down the nets.  Simon is tired.  He is perturbed.  He may have some anxiety from not having any catch.  He just wants to go home and get some rest from being out all night long so he go back out the next night.  And after cleaning up Jesus tells Simon Peter to take the clean nets back out during a time of day when fish are not naturally caught and ado the fishing in front of all these people who are watching.  Everybody knew you don’t fish with nets during the day.  People were laughing.

Jesus calls Simon to do something that does not make common sense to do - put your nets down in the deep during the day.  Within a discipleship relationship with Jesus Christ, He calls us to do things that are against what may make sense to our friends and neighbors in this world.  Jesus calls us to count everything in our life as loss compared to our relationship and obedience to Him.  Counting our possessions and comfort and ambitions as loss compared to being a disciple of Christ is against everything we are taught in our culture.  Jesus calls us to bear our own cross in order to be His disciple.  That means we are to be willing to pay the highest price relationally and highest price physically in this world just to remain obedient to Jesus Christ.  Jesus calls us to be able to renounce all that we have to follow Him.  He lets us keep things in our control but we are called to be ready at any time to let everything go for Jesus’ sake.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ He calls us to give up possessions, relationships, and life for the sake of following and knowing Him.  Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?  What have you not let go of as you try to follow Christ?  What are you struggling with calling “loss” compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord?

And what is the great reward in discipleship? We will be repaid at the resurrection of the just - Luke 14:14.  There is no cost that we can pay as we follow Jesus Christ that will not be made up to us a million fold in the resurrection.  

Enjoy being a disciple.   I look forward to worshipping with you on Sunday - Steve