Discipleship Must Begin with Why
Most churches want to turn believers into disciples; it is a worthy goal. But we can’t simply start by schooling Christians on WHAT to do to be a disciple. Being a disciple is costly (Luke 14:27-33). Like anything in life, our commitment to WHAT runs only as deep as our WHY, our motivation for doing it.
Most of us want to live a life that counts; it is a great motive (though not the only one) for being a true disciple. But it’s easy to forget about wanting to be a disciple when we aren’t seeing the impact in the world we imagined we would have. By the standard of “impact” most of the Old Testament prophets were failures; they were faithful nonetheless. WHY? There are at least three reasons:
1) They desired to live in their purpose and identity as God’s instruments.
2) Tiny impact warms God’s heart as much as big impact.
3) God promises his children huge impact in the World to Come … if we are faithful now, if we become Christ’s heart now (Luke 16:9-11, 19:16-17, 12:42-44; Jer. 3:15-17; Rev 2:26).
As we seek to be disciples, or to disciple others, we must begin with WHY.
