The angel that released the apostles from prison said to them, “Go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life” (Acts 5:20). To know “the whole message of this life” and to be obedient to it will be the basic devotion of a disciple.
A disciple is more than just a student. A disciple lives to learn from his master and become like him. Every disciple of Christ lives to learn of Him and to become like Him doing the works that He did. As we have discussed, one of the great failures of Christianity has been to reduce The Great Commission to making converts rather than making disciples. For us to fulfill our purpose at the end of this age, this must change and we must give ourselves to becoming disciples and making disciples.
Making converts is the beginning, but our failure has been in the follow-up of turning the converts into disciples. A disciple of Christ is according to His definition of what a disciple is. Knowing this definition is the first purpose of this study, so we will begin by examining what He said about His disciples.
The first use of the word disciple is in Isaiah 50:4:
The Lord God has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.
Disciples know how to sustain the weary with a word. Is that not basic to what Jesus did and who He is? He is the Word of God, and He came to this weary world with the greatest message of hope for the future that it had ever heard or ever will hear. So basic to one being a true disciple would be having the hope that sustains and being able to impart it to others.
It is also noteworthy that the disciple is awakened to receive from the Lord. This would indicate that this will be the first purpose of a disciple for their day. We begin it with seeking Him, and if we begin it that way, we will much more likely be able to follow Him through the day.
Then Isaiah continues with another basic aspect of discipleship in verses 5-6:
The Lord God has opened My ear; and I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back.
I gave My back to those who strike Me, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.
Basic to being a disciple of Christ is that we will be persecuted, as Jesus Himself explained in Matthew 10:24-25, which also happens to be His first mention of what it means to be a disciple in this Gospel:
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.
“It is enough for the disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!"
If we are going to be His disciples, then persecution will be a basic part of our lives. To those with understanding of what this age is most basically about, then they understand that this persecution is allowed for one of the most important purposes of God—to perfect and purify the bride of Christ. That makes being persecuted one of the highest purposes and greatest honors that we can have in this life. A basic question we must ask as we embark on this highest purpose that one could ever have of following the King is: Do we love Him and love His truth more than we love the approval of men?
