In John 15:8 the Lord said, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (NKJV). We begin to bear fruit as disciples, but when we go to the next level of relationship with the Lord—being His bondservant—bearing fruit by doing His work becomes our primary focus. Discipleship is mostly about us, us learning, and us growing. But becoming a bondservant requires us to apply all we have learned for His purposes, not our benefit. This is where we start doing the real work of the Lord, walking in a...

       As The Great Commission specifies that disciples are taught “all that He has commanded,” we must understand there are New Testament commandments. They are simple and basic, but they are commandments nonetheless. The most basic commandment the Lord gave us is recorded in John 13:34-35:

       “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

       “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (NKJV).

       ...

        One of the best biblical models of the kind of disciple we are called to be is Joshua. We see this in one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament, Exodus 33:7-11:

       Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp.

        So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the...

        Before continuing with what it means to be a servant of Christ, we will look at a few more aspects of “The Great Commission” from Matthew 28:19-20: 

      “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

       “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age” (NKJV).

         First, we are commanded to “go,” not “stay” and make disciples....

   One crucial aspect of being a disciple is we are called to be a disciple of Christ, not men. This does not mean we do not learn from others as our teachers, pastors, and even mentors in various disciplines and knowledge. It is a high privilege to sit under the great teachers and leaders of our times, but we are called to much more than this. We are all called to be first generation disciples of Christ Jesus Himself.

   Though I have heard it told a number of times by others, the following account really happened to me....