Saved But Not Discipled

thecaringeffect.org

HISGROUP DISCIPLESHIP. You may be one of them--believers who are said to be saved but not discipled. They don't buy the idea of being discipled or "controlled," they just want salvation and attend a church where they hear Sunday sermons and give their tithes, if any. But discipleship is a definite no-no to them. They may send their kids to a "discipleship" program to keep them busy in church than mingle with non-believers--but not they themselves.

There's just one problem with this outlook: all the believers in the New Testament were called disciples. No one was called a church member--there was no membership then, the kind that they have in church denominations today. So, if you just want to be an attending church member, where do you put yourself in Jesus' genuine church system?

A disciple is not just a believer, in the sense that the word "believer" is used today. A believer today is anyone who fears hell and doesn't want to end up there so he grabs on anything or anyone that can save. A true disciple of Jesus has a discipler, because that was how Jesus demonstrated it--his discipleship had disciples and a discipler they treated as their discipler for life. The discipler taught them how to live right before God, dealing with all aspects of life, not just church life.

Jesus then left them to themselves periodically so they can practice their faith even without visibly seeing him with them. He sent them two by two to villages and do the ministry all by themselves. He often went away and left the disciples to accustom them to doing things by faith without relying on his visible presence. Finally, he physically left them for good so they can live their lives totally by faith--the kind of faith that sees the invisible.

Do you have someone in your life discipling you like that? If not, now is the time, before Jesus returns. You should have someone training and feeding you the way Jesus did his disciples, and then later leave you to yourself so you can be like the Jesus you see in him or her, doing your ministry on your own through Christ in you--like how a dad would leave his little kid alone now and then to learn to walk by himself.

A lot of born again Christians have been walking all by themselves from start to finish without a discipler. Thus, even when they're old, they still don't know how to walk properly, particularly how to walk with good character and power with meekness. And how can you disciple others on proper walking if you yourself walk awkwardly because no one has ever taught you to? All you did all your life was to claim that Jesus himself has been discipling you, whatever that means.