Our Discipleship Journey: Part 2نموونە

Invitation and Challenge

Discipleship isn’t about imparting information or telling people what to do. Rather, discipleship is about desiring above all that people actually learn and grow, and Jesus showed us what this looks like by using invitation and challenge.

In Matthew 14, we see Jesus as the ultimate discipler. He’s fully human and so needs time alone to process His grief upon hearing that His cousin and co-minister, John the Baptist, has been killed. But He’s also the Messiah. He puts aside His needs, has compassion on a desperate crowd of people, and starts healing them. The crowd is also tired and hungry, and Jesus tells His disciples to give them something to eat. Of course, the disciples don’t have nearly enough to feed all the people, but this is all part of their training and marks a significant step up in Jesus’ discipleship strategy. Up to this point, He’s invited His disciples to come with Him and challenged them with the meaning of His message. Now, He intensifies things somewhat: less watching Him work, and more doing the work themselves. The disciples got physically involved in this miracle: they actually had to distribute food to 5000 men plus as many or more women and children. If God has invited you and challenged you to carry out a daring demonstration of His grace and power, fear not. It may feel daunting, but He will come through for you. It’s in the arena of invitation and challenge that we see real growth in a disciple’s life.

As exciting and rewarding as invitation-and-challenge discipleship is, know that fear, failure, and stress loom large when we embark on this adventure. Jesus invites us on a journey of action, and it will cost us something. Each time we’re given an invitation to step forward, we’ll experience not a gentle move to being a discipler but probably a fair amount of angst and fear. There’s no way around it. You may not have found it stressful to identify people of peace in your world, but you may well have found it stressful to invite them to read the Bible with you, right? Discipling others isn’t effortless, but it’s always worth it, and though we don’t have a dos-and-don’ts discipleship guidebook, telling us when to lean in with an invitation and when to hold back, we do have the Holy Spirit to help us.

Thankfully, Jesus didn’t sugarcoat discipleship. He showed us that challenging others will challenge us too. May you get comfortable with this discomfort and never stop inviting people into the abundant life Jesus died to secure for us.