Jesus called His disciples with one calling – “Follow me” (Math.4:19, 22, 8:22, 9:9, Mark 10:21, John 1:43). Jesus continues to remind His disciples about this call until the last day on this earth (Math. 16:24, John 21:19, 22). We can understand very well that a disciple should follow His master. Jesus wants all His disciples to follow Him and He is our true example (Heb. 6:20, 1 Pet. 2:21). In Mathew 28:19 Jesus commands to all His disciples to make all others disciples. So our call is not only to become a disciple of Jesus Christ but to make others also as the disciples of Jesus Christ.
If a disciple wants to follow his master, first of all, he has to learn from his master and practice whatever he has learnt. So in all the areas of our life we have to learn from Jesus (Math. 11:29) and practice it. We should be an example to all others and be able to tell others like Apostle Paul “Follow me as I follow Christ” (1 Cor . 11:1).
Jesus gave two great commandments to His disciples before He was leaving this earth. They are:
1. Preach the Gospel to make believers from all nations (Mark 16: 15-16).
2. Make disciples from all nations by teaching them to observe all commandments of Jesus Christ (Math. 28:19-20).
We can see very clearly the difference between the disciples and believers in the ministry of Jesus Christ on the earth. Disciples were chosen personally by Jesus Himself. They were always with Jesus and followed Him everywhere. Jesus gave them authority over everything. They were always part of His ministry. Jesus was taking care of all their needs. The believers however, were receiving all the mighty miracles from Jesus and were following Him for the earthly blessings.
In the prayer of Jesus Christ in John 17 which commonly known as high priestly prayer or Lord’s prayer, Jesus prayed only for His disciples at all times.
So it is very important to know the main conditions Jesus put for discipleship. When we look Jesus closely we can see that He was fulfilling these conditions completely and perfectly during His life on earth.
THREE CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLESHIP
Jesus puts forward three basic conditions in order to live as His disciple in Luke 14:25-33. Jesus makes it very clear without any doubt that if anyone wants to be His disciple he has to fulfil these conditions. Many believers are living to receive earthly blessings through Jesus Christ. This is a great deception and has no connection with New Covenant established by Lord Jesus Christ through His blood. But a disciple should look to obey all commandments of Jesus Christ.
In Luke 14:25 -27 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them,
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Here large crowds were following Him but Jesus was not interested in the large crowds but He wanted them to become disciples. So Jesus turned back and gave them three conditions to live as His disciple. Along with each condition Jesus also emphasizes that no one can be His disciple without fulfilling that condition. So we have to take it wholeheartedly without an iota of doubt.
1. OBEY GOD OUT OF LOVE MORE THAN ALL HUMAN BEINGS (Luke 14:26).
In many cases human relationship is one of the greatest obstacles to follow the Lord. God commanded us to honor the parents, love all other human beings. But when they are against God’s way and commandments, we have to simply obey God without considering them. In this case their opinion is of no value for us. We can see the example of Jesus Christ towards His earthly father, mother, brothers and sisters. Jesus was having only one goal – to do the will of His father- same should be ours also.
Matt 16:23 “But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” See how strongly Jesus talked to Peter. Peter rebuked Jesus with good intension out of love for his master. But it was against God’s interest and Jesus immediately corrected Peter strongly.
2. DENY HIMSELF AND CARRY HIS OWN CROSS DAILY (Luke 14:27,9:23)
Our biggest enemy in following the Lord is our own self will. We have to always say ‘NO’ to our own will and say yes to God’s will. Jesus said in John 6: 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” From here we can understand very well that Jesus was having His own will but He always said NO to that and joyfully yielded to the Father’s will. Many believers thinks and consider the difficult things in their life as their cross. But Jesus makes it very clear that the cross we have to carry daily is our own and it is our will, which is against God’s will.
3. GIVE UP ALL POSSESSIONS (Luke 14:33)
Luke 14:33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions”
We should not allow anything to control us, if we want to be a disciple of Lord Jesus Christ. Many believers are controlled by money, material, job, worldly status, opinion of man, passions of life etc. We need many things to live on this earth, we can use it wisely but we should never allow any one of them to control us. We have to lay all of these down on the altar. These things should be a slave to us to do God’s will. For example money is very essential for our daily life so use it maximum to do God’s will. There is a saying that “Money is a terrible master but is a good slave.” So nothing should control us but we can make use of it for God.
We know about the rich young ruler, who came to Jesus for eternal life (Math. 19:16-22). He could not become a disciple of Jesus Christ because he could not get free from money which was controlling him.
All these three conditions are closely connected with our daily life. Always we have to fulfill these conditions to lead the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ.
We may think that this is very difficult but since Jesus has commanded to us, He is giving enough grace to fulfill all these conditions in our life.
May God help all of us to be His true disciples.
