Discipleship --the Journey of Intentional Decisions
Structure | Order | Discipline
Discipleship is a journey of intentional decisions leading to maturity in your relationship with Jesus. You will become more like Him in your attitudes.
A “disciple” is a student; someone who follows the teaching of, learns from and models their life after someone else — in this case, Jesus.
When Jesus told His own disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, they understood that this meant to not take this assignment as a casual one—squeezed between other interests. This would need to become their primary focus.
Being found “in church” is not the same as being found “in Christ!”
Throughout time, God has always desire a relationship with man. This is a contract in which God makes with man; an offer to be their God, and He will accept them as His people:
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” [Ezekiel 11.19-20]
God has always defined His relationship with man through contracts, covenants and principles. You need a relationship with Jesus! The King of King and the Lord of Lords…
“I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high” (Leviticus 26.12)
You must say yes to Jesus—not just the “idea” of Him!
A relationship with Jesus, will be validated in the form of a contractual agreement (with specific terms between in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit — consideration ). It is signed by you and the Lord and becomes valid when you surrender your life to Jesus—not when you show up on Sunday!
Your willingness to accept His contract must include faith in Him, repentance of sins and transgressions with behavior modified, confession of allegiance totally to Him, and baptism. (water and spirit)
Faith in Him
God’s covenant involves a saving faith that is more than just “mental assent”; it involves a commitment of “obedience” to that which you believe. (James 2.14, 19). To go back on the commitment of obedient faith is a most serious thing. (2 Peter 2.20-22).
Repentance
A commitment to c h a n g e. Performing deeds in keeping with your repentance; in order to maintain the commitment-in-practice. Apologies are useless if they are not backed up by a commitment to change. (Matthew 3.7-8). Honest confession involves a commitment to be true to Christ. (1 Timothy 6.12-14).
Confession
When we confess Christ, we make a pledge of faithfulness to what we acknowledge as our belief. It is not merely an intellectual or emotional acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord—but a commitment of our will to accept His Lordship. (Colossians 2.6).
Baptism
Scriptural baptism involves a commitment to walk in newness of this life. (Romans 6.3-4) We are to abandon our own personal judgments, and do God's justice, rather than continuing in our self-serving habits. As instruments of God's justice, you must act in ways through which the new life-giving power of God's grace and Kingdom which builds up people and communities that comes with the person of Jesus.
At one time in our life, we all have signed commitment agreements of some sort of contracts, agreements and/or covenants. For example: rental agreements, car notes, mortgages, furniture financing, marriage & licenses and business contracts.
So this ‘contractual’ structure is not new to any of us. The covenant agreement with Jesus Christ, requires a commitment from us, to turn to God, and to uphold the conditions of the contract we made with Him. He asks us to commit ourselves to Him entirely.(2 Corinthians 8.5; 1 Peter 4:19). It is “foolish” to make any contractual agreement with God (or anything/anyone else), and not commit to the doing of it! (Matthew 7.24-27).
Don’t get caught “being accustomed to” the “behavior of christianity,” rather than submitting your entire life under His Lordship and Kingdom.
I leave you with the foundational, main principles of the contract—