So many people professing to be Christians are unaware of God’s truth or refuse to obey it. They twist, ignore, or misinterpret God’s word to fit their sinful desires instead of changing their sinful flesh desires to follow Yahweh, the ONE true God. They refuse to live under God’s and Christ’s authority, mandates, covenants, and commands. These realities are not the characteristics of being Christ’s disciple.

Whom We Listen to and Follow Affects Our Life and Eternity

Even though my parents were Christians, they never taught me the truth of discipleship. I didn’t know I was responsible for learning to study God’s word and grow an intimate relationship with Jesus daily. Without knowing how to become Christ’s disciple, I listened to the world’s instructions on creating my identity, value, and purpose and finding love. Many of my sinful flesh choices had devastating consequences that lasted for years. No matter how much I tried to change myself according to the world, I felt unloved, unworthy, alone, abandoned, without purpose, anxious, depressed, and unhappy.

I listened to the imperfect, sinful, self-focused world and did what I knew how to do, which is what all people do without Jesus. This statement is not an excuse to rationalize or excuse unhealthy, immoral, or sinful choices and behaviors. The statement is not to be used to blame others because “it’s just the way I was.” The brokenness I experienced from following the devil’s ways and his dominion over the earth proves his way leads to destruction and death. My thriving life in Christ proves that only Jesus and God’s truth can rescue, save, redeem, forgive, restore, and give new beginnings! Who I listened to made all the difference in my life now and for eternity!

Characteristics of Being Christ’s Disciple

To walk with Jesus as his disciple, we must know what God says and live it out. God’s word is the only way to salvation through Christ. Jesus is the way, truth, and life. Jesus tells us, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6, NIV This truth has never changed and never will. Therefore, neither has the path to becoming Christ’s disciple changed. To be a disciple, we must be teachable, trusting, and obedient.

Teachable: To be teachable, you must be willing to hear the gospel of Jesus.

How then will they call on him Jesus and they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:14-15,17, EVS

Trust: Trust results from believing John 3:16 and developing a personal relationship with Jesus daily.  

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16, NLT

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:5-6, NLT

Obedience: To follow Jesus requires you to deny your sinful desires and surrender your perceived control over your life to him. You choose to follow Christ’s ways no matter what you think, feel, or see. You are his testimony of the gospel and will fulfill the Great Commission even if it means your death.

Jesus said. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Luke 9:23–24, NLT

“If you love me, obey my commandments.”

John 14:15, NLT

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:34–35, EVS

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Hebrews 3:12–14

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. By his divine power, God has given us everything we need to live a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to Himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:2-11, NLT

Walking with Jesus is the Opposite of the World’s and the Devil’s Ways

If you are truly Christ’s disciple, you acknowledge God as your ultimate authority and LORD. Your pledge of discipleship means you will obey all of God’s word and follow Christ’s example. Jesus didn’t pick and choose who he would die for. He gave all of humanity his life. Following Jesus requires us to believe, receive, trust, and obey him and God. You can’t pick and choose if you are truly Christ’s disciple.

Jesus and God will not force themselves on you. God created us with the power to choose him or our sinful ways, which follow the devil. We will all endure challenges on this broken earth in our imperfect human condition. We have no power to fix this world, nor is it our responsibility. However, we must choose who to follow, which affects our lives now and into eternity.

• Will you choose to be a disciple of Jesus and develop a personal relationship with him that leads to trust, learning, and obedience? 
• Will you walk with the God who created ALL things and the Savior, Jesus, who died for your sins and conquered sin and death so you could spend eternity with them? 
• Will you choose to let Jesus help you live in his fruits of the Holy Spirit love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, and self-control? 
• Will you choose heaven’s eternal love or the torment of hell?
• Will you be Christ’s disciple and learn, grow, trust, and obey God’s word?

What will you choose?