I Love My ChurchSample

One of the last things Jesus said before He went back to Heaven was for us to go and make disciples. But what does making a disciple look like?

I used to think making a disciple was taking someone under my wing and teaching them how to think and act like me. Then I had a rude awakening. Jesus showed me that the world didn’t need more people to be like me. It needs more people to be like Him.

Making a disciple is not teaching someone how to be like us, but rather teaching them who Jesus is and challenging them to fall radically in love with Him. I ask people all time, “What causes you to fall in love with Jesus? Is it reading your Bible, singing, prayer, dancing before the Lord? Whatever it is, do it a lot!”  

That statement has gotten some weird looks from some people who feel like making a disciple is teaching people to follow all the rules. Discipleship in that environment means giving people a spiritual to-do list: read this, memorize this, go here. Or, maybe you heard this one: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t go with girls that do!”

If those are the rules of being a disciple, not many of the original disciples would have qualified. Peter was usually saying the wrong things at the wrong times and was sometimes violent. Matthew was a tax collector—the scum of the earth in those days. James and John were self-centered. Thomas doubted the resurrection. Yet all these men had one thing in common: a passionate love for Jesus.

Our efforts would be a lot more effective if we quit trying to teach people how to do what we do, and instead taught them who Jesus is and challenged them to fall madly and passionately in love with Him. That is how we make a disciple.