Discipleship and Intentionality

Disciple: a personal follower of Jesus during his life (that’s the dictionary definition)

My definition is a little more detailed: A faithful and true-hearted believer of God and Jesus who has evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Shows excitement and urgency for any good news concerning God’s kingdom here on earth. A learner, receiver, and giver of the gospel. 

Sounds easy, right? Wrong.

This past weekend, Blake and I were blessed to be able to attend a discipleship training course. Going into it, I really wasn’t super excited. We were exhausted after a long work week and I just wanted to relax, not go to a day and a half training course.

Well, God had other plans, like He normally does. 🙂

We’ve been so wrapped up in the calling that we feel God has placed on our lives (see last post), that we’ve been completely ignoring the present and the relationships we could have here in Charleston. There’s a reason God brought us to this beautiful city, and it certainly wasn’t to just ignore everything and everyone around us.

See, as much as I love intentional conversation and forming deep bonds, I sort of suck at it. Call it procrastination or laziness, but it’s the truth. I’m great at forming connections, but when it comes to digging deep, I either give up, or I run. I don’t want to do that anymore, especially when it comes to sharing Jesus and my testimony.

One of the hard truth’s that I faced this past weekend was that “there’s a huge difference between converting someone and discipling them”. I get so caught up in the facts and knowledge of Jesus, that I don’t intentionally invest in people. Jesus didn’t just teach the disciples. He also walked with them, prayed with them, listened to them, was emotional with them, and built relationships with them. He lived life with them and loved them not only through words, but through His actions.

True discipleship is about becoming more like Jesus and pointing straight to Him. 

All of Jesus’ teachings and words are important, but we should absolutely pay attention to the very last words He spoke to His own disciples.

Read it 50 times if you need to, but one thing it does not say is “wait for people to come to you”. Oops. Guilty. I’ve been so worried about what people may think of me, my words, and my testimony, that I just sit back and say “God will bring someone to me when He wants to.” While that may happen, it’s not what He asked us to do. It’s not what He has commanded us to do. Go and make.

I think one of the big things that has stopped me from intentionally investing in people is that underneath my striving to seem “put together”, I’m a mess. I’m broken. I truly haven’t thought that God could speak through me or use me. Honestly though, I’ve focused entirely too much on myself. Because the truth is, God does His best work through messy and broken people. He always has, and always will.

It’s time to stop listening to the lies that God can’t and won’t use us right where we are. It’s time to stop believing that discipleship is about numbers and the amount of conversions you witness. It’s time to intentionally invest in the people around you and be who God called you to be. A disciple.