Devotionals: Discipleship Archives

Summing Up

By Andrew YoungSeptember 6, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) Bible Reading: Mark 8:34-38 This has turned out to be a longer series of reflections than I originally planned. That’s not because I have been deliberately “spinning things out” – at least, I don’t think so. Rather, in keeping with the aim of these devotionals, I have “parked” and examined important ideas as we have encountered them, believing that it is only as we take time to meditate on truth that it changes us. I am not sure how you have […]

Honesty

By Andrew YoungSeptember 5, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“What has to be done… is to be honest about what we and others really believe.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Jeremiah 17:9, 10 The third requirement for making disciples we are considering involves getting people to change the way they think about the world and what is real. In particular, it requires that we help them see that Jesus truly is the risen Lord of all and that the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality. Part of the difficulty we face when it comes to this, even among professing Christians, is to get people to recognise what their true […]

Belief and Action

By Andrew YoungSeptember 4, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“We always live up to our beliefs – or down to them, as the case may be.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Romans 7:13-25 In our last devotional, we noted that people will only consider following Jesus as a practical way of life if they seriously believe what the Gospels teach about him and God’s kingdom. For that to be so, they must stand against the prevailing mindset of our culture as to what is real. As Dallas Willard puts it, “To make disciples of Jesus today, one has to make him and his God real to them, right in the […]

Desiring the Kingdom

By Andrew YoungSeptember 3, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“You lead people to become disciples of Jesus by ravishing them with a vision of life in the kingdom of the heavens in the fellowship of Jesus.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Acts 17:22-34 We come to the third and final requirement for making disciples. If we are to do so, we must be a disciple and intend to make disciples. But how are we to go about doing it? That is the crucial final point to consider. Willard begins with a negative. The way to help people become disciples, he says, is “certainly not by nagging them with the ‘pearls’” […]

Discipleship and Evangelism

By Andrew YoungSeptember 1, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“Do we now… have any idea of what discipleship evangelism… would look like?” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Luke 19:1-10 Our recent focus on encouraging people to become (and to be makers of) disciples naturally raises the question, “But what about evangelism? Does it get lost in a Christian community that is centred on helping people become followers of Jesus?” That cannot possibly be the case. One cannot be a true follower of Jesus and not share his compassion for the lost and take on his mantle of proclaiming, manifesting and teaching the kingdom to those who are currently outside of […]

Clear Intention

By Andrew YoungAugust 31, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“It must be our conscious objective… to bring others to the point where they are daily learning from Jesus how to live their actual lives as he would live them if he were they.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Colossians 1:28, 29 We are looking at the idea of being disciple-makers – that is, those who help others go beyond a mere profession of faith in Jesus to being his committed apprentices in kingdom living. So far we have seen that the first requirement for this is that we ourselves be disciples. But we move on to the second requirement for […]

“The Elephant in the Church”

By Andrew YoungAugust 30, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“Non-discipleship is the elephant in the church.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Matthew 22:34-40 Dallas Willard tells of an interesting television commercial promoting a drug rehabilitation programme in the USA that featured an elephant walking around in an ordinary house. It was pictured as strolling past the son of the household doing his homework and the wife washing dishes. The key point in the commercial was the fact that everyone in the house studiously tried to ignore the elephant. It was obviously the biggest thing in the house, yet people were acting as though it was not there. Applying this to […]

Being Disciples Ourselves

By Andrew YoungAugust 29, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“We need to know these things by personal experience, as did the first generation of Jesus’ people.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 How can we help other people become devoted followers or “decisive apprentices” of Jesus in kingdom living? Willard suggested there are three parts to the answer to that question: “We must, of course, be disciples, we must intend to make disciples, and we must know how to bring people to believe that Jesus really is the One.” (The Divine Conspiracy, 328) It makes sense, doesn’t it, that we can really only effectively help others become disciples if […]

Being Disciple-Makers

By Andrew YoungAugust 28, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“Those who have found their way [into the kingdom] will inevitably want to share the new reality they have found with those around them.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Matthew 28:18-20 We come to the final, and in many ways, the most challenging section of this chapter on “Being a Disciple, or Student, of Jesus” found in Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy. It deals with the matter of “helping others find their way into discipleship” – that is, with discipling other people. By way of introduction to this section, Willard makes a comment that summarises much of what we have […]

Decision

By Andrew YoungAugust 27, 2017Devotionals: Discipleship

“But in the last analysis, we fail to be disciples only because we do not decide to be.” Dallas Willard Bible Reading: Joshua 24:14-15 The final step to becoming a disciple of Jesus, Dallas Willard says, involves a decision. The journey to discipleship begins with the heart and realising the supreme value of learning from Jesus and living with him in his kingdom. It then requires getting the clarity of mind to “count the cost,” and thirdly, asking, and studying. But when all is said and done, becoming a disciple requires an act of decision. There are some who fear […]