In my first discipleship post, I would like to hit the ground running. One thing about Christ is that He did not hold His tongue when dealing with spiritual issues. So let’s begin with some straight-up talk about what Christ expects from His followers. In Matthew 5, Christ begins to teach the crowds who gathered around about what it meant to be His follower. He gave some very important instructions as to what one’s Christian life should look like. Today, many churches have created their versions of how a Christian should live. But no matter what any man teaches, those who are followers of Christ should be following Him and Him alone as He says in Matthew 4:4, “But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”, which is also taught to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 8:3. Since we have this same instruction in both the Old and the New Testament, we are without excuse to abide by these teachings.

In Christ’s teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, He said several things that can provide for today’s Christ followers a blueprint as to what God expects from us as those who profess to be Christians. I will point out a few of these in this blog that are vital in our understanding of being a disciple of Christ. Christ knew that the road He had to walk to save us was a difficult one and so would be the live in that salvation. When I first read this as a new believer, I was surprised as I have met many people who profess to be Christian. In Matthew 7:13, however, Christ teaches, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” There are only few who really walk the Christian life. In April 2020, Arizona Christian University wrote a paper titled, “Faith and Worldview”, This study showed the variations of different people of faith and their worldview based on the Bible. Only 14% of Evangelicals have a Biblical worldview, meaning that they live by “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”, as Christ instructed. More disturbing is that on 1% of American Catholics hold to a Biblical worldview.

Now I can see the point Christ is making about the few. They are those who have the boldness and courage to not change their thinking, principles, and values based on things outside of God’s Word. I choose to be among the few. The next thing that I notice about what Christ says about His followers is that it does not matter how much you do, it’s a matter of the heart and the object of one’s motive in what they are doing. Christ taught this in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ Wow! That’s pretty straightforward. God is constantly watching everything we do and in the end, what we do will go through His test of fire. (1 Corinthians 3:10-16.) The next thing that Christ taught that is vital to our walk of faith is our attitude toward God and others.

In Matthew 22:37-39, Christ teaches this, “And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” One of the evidences of a truly born-again believer is their love for God and others. The love that Christ points to is defined in 1 Corinthians 13. The way we treat God and the way we treat those whom He has created says a lot about the true state of Christ’s disciples. 1 John 4:20-21 is very clear and direct about how we treat others, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” 1 John is a very foundational study in discipleship. I began my discipleship relationship with a study of the book of 1 John. It provides for Christ’s disciples a solid foundation of what our lives should look like.

One of the questions we must ask ourselves as Christians is this: Would you be considered as part of the few? God has given us all that we need to prepare our lives to be Christ’s faithful disciples. There are many things that Christians profess in today’s church, but would that profession pass Christ’s test of discipleship? Be the few!