God's commission to all is to go and make disciples where God has put us and to share the love of Christ to people around us. What does that process look like and how do we know which stage of the process people are in?
In Matthew 28:19, Jesus commands us, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Discipleship may look different depending on the culture of a church, a community, or a nation, but in every discipleship journey, we find a biblical pattern that leads people closer and closer to Jesus Christ.
The goal of discipleship is always to teach people to follow Jesus, not follow people or programmes. While discipleship may be systematic and programmed, we must allow for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of people and bring them into a process of development. Here are three stages of discipleship that God brings people through and that we are to help facilitate.
Salvation and repentance
The first step of discipleship is always an acknowledgement of who is Lord and Saviour. Speaking to who would be the first disciples of the body of Christ, Peter said in Acts 2:36, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
Unless people start with a revelation of Christ as being their source of salvation and being the Lord of their lives, the discipleship process has barely begun.
Building of foundations
Jesus put plenty of emphasis on building strong biblical foundations that would make disciples storm-proof and faith-filled. Matthew 7:24-25 says, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."
We can never out-do biblical foundations and every disciple is built up by the Holy Spirit into the foundations of God's Word and into the foundations of church community.
Involvement and fellowship
God doesn't call people to His church to simply become spectators. God wants us all to get involved in ministry and in fellowship. 2 Timothy 2:2 says, "and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." The people we disciple, if truly brought into a realisation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and built of strong foundations, will eventually start to make disciples of others as well.
