Sound The Trumpet : Discipleship

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“Discipleship”
by Hugh W. Davidson
May 20th, 2007

We are all called to be disciples and yet there seems to be a lot of fuzzy thinking about the subject of discipleship. In John 8:31 it says, "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed." So, discipleship begins with believing the gospel message. And that message includes all that Jesus said about the wonders of heaven, the terrors of hell and everything He said about the plan of salvation and the fate of the lost.

Discipleship also means staying true to the word of God and as believers we're all concerned with knowing the will of God and what better place to find it than in the word of God. It's interesting that the word disciple means learner and all our lives are meant to be spent learning more and more about the Christian life.

I saw a commercial on T.V. one night where a guy sat down at a computer and worked away for a while then he got up and told his wife that he saw everything there was to see on the internet. And just as we know that that's impossible we also realize that we'll never know all there is to know about the word of God.

Being a disciple also means being obedient to the word of God. After all, we don't study His word just to beat each other in a game of Bible Monopoly but we study His word to do it. And being a disciple doesn't mean were perfect. You see, a disciple is not a believer who has a deeper commitment than those around them but the word disciple simply means one who learns from another. In John chapter six we are told there were many disciples who went back and quit following the Lord. So it stands to reason that if one who was called a disciple could throw in the towel then the word disciple is certainly not a guarantee of sainthood or a title for the deeper life but it's simply another word for a believer or a follower.

A true disciple of Jesus Christ is simply a believer whose faith has motivated him toward a life of obedience. And much of our confusion about discipleship stems from our understanding of the matter of salvation. Salvation is a free gift but one that demands everything.

I heard a story about a little bamboo shoot that was transplanted from the jungle and placed in the garden of a king's palace. And in the palace garden it grew to about 75 feet tall and it towered over all the other trees and provided a place for both shade and fellowship for the king.

One day as the king was in the garden Bamboo noticed that something was bothering him. He hoped there was something he could do in order to express his love and gratitude to the king. So, he asked him what the problem was.

Oh, Bamboo said the king, we have everything we need in abundance up here in the royal garden but the people down in the village are having a famine because of the drought. There's plenty of water up here but we have no way of getting it down the mountain.

Bamboo thought about it long and hard and then with a heavy heart he said to the king, "I'll be the means of getting the water down the mountain." The king said, "Bamboo, you don't know what you are saying. We'd have to cut off all your beautiful branches and you'll lose the admiration of all the other trees. We'd have to cut you down and then you would no longer be the tallest tree in the garden. And then we'd have to split you down the center and you'd be desecrated in the eyes of the world. And Bamboo said, "Everything that seems so important to me now will someday be gone anyway. I want to give what I have now that others may live."

That ought to be our intention as well. After all, we were transplanted from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light. And each of us has been called by God to be the means of getting the water of God's word to a lost and dying world.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13