Learn From the Master

From Radio Free Babylon

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Viva L'Difference!

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Gospel Based Discipleship

I really like this explanation of discipleship:

"A disciple of Jesus is someone who learns the gospel, relates in the gospel, and communicates the gospel. This definition of disciple shows us that the gospel both makes and matures disciples. We see this in Jesus’s ministry. Jesus proclaimed the same gospel to the crowds that he taught to the disciples. He did not have the twelve on a special, gospel-plus track to study advanced subject matter.

The gospel is for undergraduates and graduates because nobody ever graduates from the gospel.

Jesus taught the same gospel of the kingdom to sinners and saints.

Why? Because his agenda of grace is the only solution to our common predicament of sin, Christian or non-Christian. Both desperately need the forgiving, reconciling, and restoring power of the gospel to know and enjoy God, not just once but for a lifetime.....

.....This gospel-centric approach to disciple-making is largely missing from discipleship today, which tends to focus on evangelistic techniques and discipleship methods. Unless these methods are tethered to a robust understanding of the gospel, they will actually sabotage discipleship. What we need is a recentering of Christian discipleship devolving it into forms of spiritual performance.

The Great Commission is not evangelism- or discipleship-centered—it is gospel-centered. It calls us to make disciples by being a people who orbit around Jesus and his blood-bought benefits, not performance and self-made efforts.

Disciples are gospel people who introduce and reintroduce themselves and others to the person and power of Jesus over and over again. A disciple of Jesus never stops learning the gospel, relating in the gospel, and communicating the gospel."

From Jonathan Dodson at The Resurgence
 

Idolatry: Worship Distorted

Is your Worship Distorted ? Per Bill Clem at it's a question worth asking. And the solution is to confront your idols with the gospel.

I was asked to teach an intensive course at a seminary, three eight-hour days of presentation. During the first hour my agenda was to introduce the idea that we are all idolaters. I began by saying, “One hundred percent of your pastoral counseling will involve identifying and confronting idols.” Immediately the push back began: “Idolatry is a primitive idea”; “People don’t have idols; they have issues.” As long as we ignore what the Bible says about the human heart and what God desires from his people, we will raise these same objections. The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)

He goes on to say that the root of idolatry is pride:

Pride is seen as detestable to God precisely because it steals from God’s glory and his preeminence. Pride is rebellion, but it is much more than rebellion against God’s authority. Pride is self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. A proud heart sees itself as central and God as the one who must find his place of orbit in the proud heart’s universe. While few people who call themselves Christians would admit to such a self-centered worldview, I find my weeks filled with people with questions and comments such as these:

How can God be loving and let this bad thing happen to me?
I can’t believe in a God who let’s bad things happen.
I don’t care what the Bible says; this is what I want.
I have been praying for a Christian husband, and if God wanted me to marry one, then he would have provided one.
If God is against homosexuality, why did he create me this way?
If God wanted me to stay married, he should have told that to my cheating spouse.

Look beyond the content of those objections to the underlying conviction of those who are making them. The objectors believe they have rights and God has the responsibility to work within those rights. To their way of thinking, God can’t love and also do something the objector can’t understand, nor can God call for behavior that is inconvenient or politically incorrect. They believe that God has no right to ask them to opt for grace and forgive another when they have a “biblical” right to hurt someone who has hurt them.

 The whole thing is well worth the time to read.  Over the past two years I have really come to see the nature and power of idolatry in my life and in people in general. We need more emphasis on confronting idols with the power of the gospel.

And BTW, Clem's book Disciple: Getting Your Identity From Jesus is a good read.

The Most Neglected Component of Discipleship

From the blog Forward Progress comes this intriguing question -What is The Most Neglected Component of Discipleship

Fasting?
Prayer?
Scripture memory?
Solitude?
Nope. I think it’s love.
What does the greatest command hinge upon? Love. What will be the defining characteristic of followers of Jesus? Love. What will never pass away, even after faith and hope are gone? Love.
Love is the mark of the disciple. But here’s the problem: You can’t teach love.

Much more at the link above.