This Doesn't Have to Be Difficult (I)

part two of "The Demand of Discipleship"

Relationship.

Content.

Time.

That’s it. That’s the ingredients list. When distilled to its simplest form, discipleship presents itself as the relationships which help us and others live to the glory of God. Christians often think of discipleship as a process, which in one manner is true, but the process of becoming a disciple is not disembodied or disconnected from other Christians.

Today’s article will look at the first aspect—relationship, and in subsequent weeks, we’ll dig into the other two—content and time.

Relationship

Jesus calls his first disciples and he doesn’t say, “Let me show you the processes by which you can become fishers of men.” He says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”¹ Watch Jesus and his interactions with the twelve and you’ll see that what is conspicuously absent is a formal process. Conversely, the relationship, the companionship, and the traveling through life together form the process of forming the disciples. They get to hang out with Jesus. They have what we would consider to be “incredible access” to the Messiah. How many of us would love to spend hours with our pastor(s) or our spiritual mentors? Not to always be peppering him or her with questions about theology, but just to be present.

Isn’t this what being a disciple is or should be about—being with Jesus? In one of Jared Wilson’s books, he writes about Ray Ortlund, calling him the most Jesus-y guy he knows and noting that whenever he’s around Ray he walks away sensing that Ray has really been with Jesus.² He is so saturated with Christ’s presence that it drips off of him. This is what it is to be a disciple. People know that you’ve been with Jesus, that you’re friends with him. It’s a reflection of what we see in Exodus when Moses comes down off of Mount Sinai, positively radiant—literally. So powerful is the glory of God that Moses’s face shone after being in his presence to speak with him.³

Why does “being with Jesus” matter?

We know that who we hang out with is who we eventually become, warning our children about not falling in with the “wrong crowd.” We talk about the importance of finding Christian friends because then we can be good influences on each other. We heed the words of the apostle Paul who, when writing to the church at Corinth, reminds them to live holy lives, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’”⁴

Notice, none of that says, engage in this process or that process, but be wary of the company you keep. The truth of sound and healthy relationships found in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 rings true as we consider discipleship—we need other people to labor beside, to encourage, to support, and strengthen our often weak and weary steps. Our God is a God of relationship, a three-in-one interrelationship with himself. Human beings, made in his image, were designed to have relationship with him, but severed by sin, we are separated from him until we go to him or he returns to make all things new.

Relationship is vital and crucial to discipleship. We need other people to spur us on, to hold us accountable, to pick us up when we trip over our own feet and when life knocks the wind out of us, to encourage us to keep moving forward, to show us how to succeed; all of which can help us to abide in Christ.

But saying, “I’m in relationship with other Christians.” does not guarantee discipleship because relationship isn’t the only ingredient in the recipe⁵, but if we shift the discipleship conversation from processes to relationships, imagine the success that’s possible.

Every Christian is in relationship with someone. Even Christian introverts reading this recognize (often painfully) that you are not an individual completely cut off from the rest of the world. You work with others, you have family members, you have friends, you go to church—you should go to church⁶, you go to the grocery store, you go to the doctor and dentist and chiropractor and gas station.

If we shift our definition of discipleship to the relationships which help us and others live to the glory of God, we’ve taken the first step to seeing disciples becoming disciple-makers.

Becoming a disciple-maker means building a relationship with someone else to help him or her, and yourself, live life to the glory of God. That could be the guy at your office who has zero Christian background, the parents of your child’s classmate who goes to a different church, the elderly man in the room next to your mom at the assisted living facility, or the person in your Sunday School class that you see every week.

You already have the first thing you need—a relationship.

It really is that simple.

Be sure to check in next week to read about the second necessity: content.

~SDG~

---

Photo credit: Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

1. Matthew 4:19, CSB

2. This is in Wilson’s The Imperfect Disciple, but I don’t have it handy to cite the reference specifically.

3. Exodus 34:29-35, CSB

4. 1 Corinthians 15:33, CSB

5. More on this next week

6. I’m often surprised how many “Christians” don’t go to church.