Recently while reading a book on discipleship I understood why the study of discipleship had left me with a less than hopeful outlook when I was first introduced to the concept years ago. \u00a0I truly wanted to be a disciple of Christ but thinking about it left me with a feeling of almost dread. \u00a0The problem wasn’t the terms and demands of discipleship, such as denying self and forsaking all to follow Christ. I knew this was necessary \u00a0to becoming a true disciple of Christ. \u00a0I also knew He was the Potter and I was the clay and I wanted, truly wanted Him to ‘mould me and make me after His will’.<\/p>\n
I was o.k. with the do’s of discipleship but now know there was a vey important ingredient missing in what I had learned years ago. \u00a0The book I was reading a few days ago basically was saying the same thing I had learned years ago. The author correctly assumed that anyone who has become a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus should obey Him no matter what the cost. \u00a0What however was missing was any emphasis on the child of God being “In Christ”. \u00a0An understanding of what it means to be “In Christ” is foundational to the “doing” part of a disciple. \u00a0The “BEING” comes before the “DOING”.<\/p>\n
Jesus said: “If any man come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” \u00a0This command of Jesus was to be lived out on the foundation of His soon coming death on the cross where He would die, not only in His follower’s place as but also as His follower’s representative. \u00a0In Christ not only would the follower die to the power of sin, but he would rise with Christ to being alive with God’s life, a new creation in Christ, with Christ living His life, doing His work, by the Spirit through His follower. \u00a0So many of us have tried to “reform” ourselves with God’s help, into His disciples. \u00a0The truth is God isn’t in the business of reforming who we were before we were in Christ. \u00a0Yes, each of us must by faith’s deliberate identification reckon ourselves alive unto God and move forward by His power to becoming more like Christ as we live here on earth, but we must do so on the foundation of who we were in Adam having died to sin there with Christ on the cross and now being alive to God \u00a0with God’s life, a new creation, IN CHRIST”.<\/p>\n
The Father related to Jesus as “MY BELOVED SON” in whom I delight”. \u00a0And because we are “IN HIM” (remember we died with Him and rose with Him a new creation “IN HIM”) the Father relates to us in the same manner He does to Christ. \u00a0So sure, being a disciple of Christ means denying self and forsaking all to follow Him. \u00a0To do so however is no stern, austere discipline of trying to do something impossible. It means joyfully giving Him our all because yes, He demands our all, but He does so on the foundation of being in Christ, loved by the Father and the Son and empowered by the Spirit. \u00a0We must DO THE DOING, but we do so because of whom we have BECOME, “IN Christ”.<\/p>\n
Three things here to clarify the above. \u00a01. I do not believe the old nature is eradicated. \u00a02. We haven’t become and it isn’t God’s purpose that we become divine. \u00a0 3. \u00a0We become “In Christ” when we believe He died for us in our place, in other words, when we were “saved”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently while reading a book on discipleship I understood why the study of discipleship had left me with a less than hopeful outlook when I was first introduced to the concept years ago. \u00a0I truly wanted to be a disciple of Christ but thinking about it left me with a feeling of almost dread. \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}