Small Steps in Discipleship to Jesus: A Vision

For God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

This popular verse encompasses the vision of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus.  The substance of that vision is God's love for each person as an individual.  The expression of that love is in God's gift of Jesus Christ.  The response to that love is belief, seeing and trusting in this loving God.  The outcome is eternal life, a blessed and wonderful existence with God starting now and stretching into eternity.

According to Dallas Willard, who uses vision in his V-I-M model for personal transformation (Living a Transformed Life Adequate to Our Calling), vision is what motivates each person in growth.  The stronger the vision, the stronger the desire for growth and change.  I am not surprised that God spends so much time teaching me about and encouraging me with his love.  I remember one man writing that 90% of the time God speaks to him, he tells him how much he loves him.  God understands that without this vision of his love firmly set in the heart, the intention the change and the means of enabling such change will not be effective.

The substance of God's love must go beyond a general good feeling or force.  God does not love humanity; God loves each person.  In The Shack, I found it touching to hear God the Father say, "Tell your friend that I am especially fond of him."  He is able to spend time with each of us as individuals and not be less present  to any one person just because there are so many people.  He is infinite in his ability to give attention.  Jesus puts it this way: "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered."  God does not love or treat us as masses or generalities; God loves each person dearly as an individual.

The expression of God's love is seen most clearly in Christ.  He is the Word through which everything that has been made was made.  He is Jesus, the incarnation of invisible God.  The Spirit of Jesus continues to indwell and act within this world and in his disciples.  One way I have discovered in understanding Jesus is to see that he comes as my Savior, Lord, Teacher, and Friend.  I can see the substance of God's love in a relationship with his Son, who brings God's love to me in ways I can understand and appreciate.  These four relationships express the deepest needs of my heart.  I need to be saved and restored.  I need to embrace my life as a created being who serves my God.  I need to be shown how to live.  I need to be befriended and walked with, even when I am not such a good friend myself.

The response to God's love is trusting him.  The relationships that God establishes in Christ require a response on my part in order for me to be a part of him.  I am always responding and never initiating in these relationships.  I respond to Jesus as my Savior by accepting my need my need to be saved, my hopelessness without his action on my part.  I respond to Jesus as my Lord by obedience to his commands, seeking to conform to his desires, and worshiping him and through him.  I respond to Jesus as my Teacher by learning from him about how to live my life as he would live my life, being his apprentice, his disciple.  I respond to Jesus as my Friend by going to him in all times, good or bad, and confiding in him about all things.  I see Jesus in these ways and trust that they are true about him.

The outcome of God's love is eternal life.  Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God and himself.  This is not merely something that happens after a person dies.  The reality and experience of eternal life can begin in this age and in my present existence.  The vision of eternal life is one of abundance, blessedness, love, joy and peace.  Although Jesus says that I will have trouble in this life, he says that he has overcome all trouble.  That is one of the meanings of the cross.  No one stands outside of the blessedness of such abundant life, no matter what their status, circumstances, or sufferings.  In the light of this life, even when we face trouble and suffering, Jesus says, "Rejoice and be glad!"  (Matthew 5:12)

Such a vision of God's love is what under-girds discipleship to Christ.  Where the vision falters or fades, my desire fades as well.  Without the light of that vision, my intentions become confused and my practices meaningless.  As the vision of God's love which gave me Jesus as my Savior, Lord, Teacher, and Friend who accepts my neediness, my service, my questions, and my company and which brings a new life of blessedness and abundance fills my vision, my sight, and my life, I will find that my decision to follow him and serve him and love him becomes clear and the practices necessary to enter that life become fruitful and life-giving.  I believe that most of my effort and attention need to go into this vision so clearly stated in John 3:16.

If you were to pick one aspect of this vision that gives you the most trouble, which would it be?  Do you find it hard to see God loving you in particular?  Do you find it hard to see Jesus as being enough to fill your needs and desires?  Do you find it hard to accept a relationship with Jesus?  Do you find it hard to see your life as blessed and abundant?

Small Steps in Discipleship to Jesus: Living Life, the Outcome of God's Love

With your life.  When I trust someone with my life, I might say, "My life is in your hands."  I might say this to a doctor or an airplane pilot.  For some time, they have a lot of say about my life continuing or not.  I am frightened when I find out they might not be trustworthy.  When my life does not matter much to them, I am worried.

Certainly my trust of Jesus extends at least this far.  I believe in him, so that I "would not perish, but have eternal life."  I trust that he will care about my life.  The truth is that Jesus cares a good deal more about my life than I do.

I am notoriously self-destructive, like all other people.  I tend to care a whole lot more about what I want than how I live.  Perhaps I am "health-conscious" and watch over my body.  Well and good.  Do I watch over my soul?  More often than not, my soul is left to "fend for itself" and I hope that it will be okay.

Eternal life has to do more with my soul than my body.  It is not that I do not include my body as I trust Jesus with my life, but I realize that this is not enough.  If I watch over my soul, my body will receive the care it needs.  If I merely watch over my body, my soul will wither, since it includes so much more.  My soul interacts with my mind and my heart (spirit) as well.  My soul is my life on its most basic, inclusive level.

In a less abstract way of thinking, eternal life is about living my whole life.  I trust Jesus with my life as I might trust a doctor.  I also trust him with my life as I might say to my wife, "I will love you with my life."  Now my life is not only the object that I entrust to Jesus, but also the agency with which I trust Jesus.  I trust him with my life like I might hit a ball with a bat.  I find that Jesus came as more than an insurance salesman, but a teacher and counselor who would instruct me on how life is best lived.  Life as it is best lived is eternal life.

The fact that this life with Jesus does not end is wonderful, but not without this life also being wonderful in itself. Eternal life begins today and stretches into eternity.  There is no use waiting for it.  It grows (as life does), but is not merely is a "savings account" for later.  Jesus explains this clearly in John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life: that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."  Knowing Jesus and living with him is what it means to trust him with my life.

Eternal life is a life lived for love, God's love.  This is the most fundamental reality about life.  Each thing that exists owes its presence and reality to God's love and generosity.  Eternal life is a life lived coming to know Jesus.  His roles as Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend only scratch the surface of his relationship to each person.  Knowing him is so much more than knowing about him.  Eternal life is a life lived trusting Jesus.  This trust is how I accept this Jesus I know as my life.  Life rightly lived is no more than life lived in trust of Jesus who we are coming to know because of a God who loves us so deeply.

What parts of your life do you find difficult to entrust to Jesus?  Usually fear surrounds these spots.  Can you start to give one of these things away to him?

Small Steps in Discipleship to Christ: Trust, the Response to God's Love

Trust Jesus.  Hospitality is my job in discipleship.  As I grow to understand God's devotion to me, hospitality is a natural outcome.  Story upon story reflect this understanding of what it means to "receive Christ."  From Jesus' story the owner of the vineyard who sends his son, hoping they will receive him to Jesus' teaching that "he who receives me receives the one who sent me,"  Jesus explains a humble God, who knocks at our doors, hoping that we will let him into our lives.  Such hospitality to God is what motivates and invigorates my love for other people as well.  "Anyone who gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."  (Matthew 10:42)

This is why God "gave his only begotten Son."  His love is one that hopes to be received.  His Word made flesh came to us to be invited in.  His Spirit was sent from this glorified man to scour the earth for those who would welcome God sincerely from their hearts.  The reception of Christ relies mostly on what I think of the God who sent him.  His devoted love is what lays the foundation for my welcoming Christ into my life.  Jesus' living and teaching demonstrate how God really is.  His Spirit takes that teaching and life and immerses me in it, making it "real" to me.

"Whosoever believes" in Jesus as a Teacher trusts what he says, learning it, and practicing it.  Anyone who has taken a class knows the difference between trusting a teacher and pleasing a teacher.  I can work to please a teacher and not trust him.  By trusting a teacher, I also will please him.  Jesus is like this.  He doesn't want me merely to try to please him by doing what he says.  He wants me to trust him and what he says.  The pleasing and doing will follow the trust.

 "Whosoever believes" in Jesus as a Friend confides in him and listens for his comfort and answers.  I must learn to trust that Jesus is on my side.  He said that he did not come to condemn, but to save.  His work has got him the reputation of being a "friend of sinners."  Sinners can trust Jesus to talk with them, be with them, and hear them when they call.  The gospel is an open door for sinners, whether recovering of not.

 "Whosoever believes" in Jesus as his Savior admits his hopelessness without him and embraces his hope with him.  Trusting a savior begins with seeing my lost and broken situation.  One thing will not change through all eternity: Jesus saves.  This marvel only deepens as I grow.  I see that his salvation is not the mere removal of guilt, but the removal of sin from my life with a promise of perfection.  I deepen in my trust of a savior as I grow in my awareness of his love for me in spite of me.

 I receive Jesus as Lord when I set my mind and heart on things above and beyond this age and leave it behind.  Jesus is Lord.  His name is above every name, meaning his nature and character define all reality as I know it.  He created everything.  He sustains everything.  He will bring everything to its conclusion.  In Christ all wisdom begins and ends.  Everything I see is temporary and passing away.  A new age is coming with Jesus as the Ruler and Lord.  I must live in this age holding things lightly and clinging to the things that are above and beyond it, "where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father."  (Colossians 3:1)

 None of these are mutually exclusive, but all work together.  The separation is arbitrary since I am welcoming and trusting a person, Jesus, and not just something about him, in my life.  All of these pictures show how great God's gift of Christ is to me and how satisfying and full my relationship with him can be.

Do you find yourself pleasing Jesus with trusting him?  Do you ever find yourself professing what you don't really believe?  God wants you to trust him.  What would it take for you to trust him?

Small Steps into Discipleship to Christ: God's Love Expressed

Jesus is the Answer.  Who is this "only begotten Son" of God?  What has God given to me in his love?

God gave his Son primarily for three reasons.  The first is so that I might become like him.  Jesus put flesh and bones to the commandments of God.  He came as the Teacher.  His words are Spirit and life.  (John 6)  Honestly learned and practiced, they bring me into a new way of living, called eternal.  It begins, but has no end.  It is continual existence with God, who is eternal.  It is from age to age, outlasting even the known universe itself.

Second, God gave his Son so that I might be redeemed.  Jesus is the sacrifice necessary to pay for my sins.  He is the only effective sacrifice.  I offered myself to sin as a slave and could not hope to be free to come to God without Jesus.  He came as the Savior.  He also came as my Friend.  Before he was my Savior he was my Friend, because Jesus is the friend of sinners.  He befriended me and when the time came he redeemed me, he bought me back from my sin by paying the penalty I had earned.  My sin meant suffering and death.  He took them upon himself.

Third, God gave his Son so that my world might be restored.  Jesus is victorious over sin, Satan, and death.  The old order of things is passing away now.  No longer is sin central to life.  No longer does Satan hold sway over my mind and my body.  No longer is death the inevitable ruler of this world.  Jesus is Lord through his death and  resurrection.  He overcomes everything that opposes light and life in this world.  This age continues to limp along, but is coming to an end.  Jesus has begun that end.

God gave me Jesus for my redemption.  I am brought back through his friendship.  I am bought back through his saving grace.  God gave me Jesus as the perfect person.  He teaches me to be like him.  God gave me Jesus so my life and my world would be recovered and restored.  He is Lord of all things and will bring them all into submission through the power of his grace and mercy.  Friend.  Savior.  Teacher.  Lord.  This is my Jesus.

Which of these aspects of Christ do you find most easy to receive?  Friend?  Savior?  Teacher?  Lord?  Which is the hardest?  What makes it difficult to receive Jesus this way?