Disciple to Faithਨਮੂਨਾ

The Process in a Nutshell

Jesus modelled how to make disciples by living with His radar up and being guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer. He acknowledged the importance of proximity, inviting His disciples into His life. He exposed them to the truth and helped them recognise people of peace. He gave them an example to imitate, and then He rapidly mobilised them to disciple others. It’s likely you’ll find one or two of these aspects of the discipleship process easier or more difficult – more exciting, or completely daunting. Try to figure out why you feel what you feel and allow the Holy Spirit to change your perspectives.

John records a beautiful exchange between Jesus and a Samaritan woman, which perfectly portrays Jesus’ disciple-making process. John tells us that Jesus had to go through Samaria on His way back to Galilee. This wasn’t strictly necessary, geographically, and most Jews would’ve gone the long way around to avoid Samaria completely. Rather, Jesus was strongly compelled by the Spirit to go through Samaria because He recognised that God was at work.

It’s likely the Samaritan woman is fetching water in the heat of the day because she’s a social outcast. Jesus risks His reputation by entering into casual conversation with her and asking her for a drink of water. She then moves the conversation from casual to meaningful, asking Jesus about His political views. Jesus takes the discussion from meaningful to spiritual, and soon the woman is fully engaged in this spiritual conversation. Jesus exposes her to the truth that He is indeed the Messiah.

The woman then abandons her water jar and rushes back into town to tell anyone who will listen that she’s just met the Saviour of the world. Perhaps our kneejerk reaction is to say, ‘But she’s only just met Jesus! She’s overly zealous and untrained to spread the gospel.’ She knows, however, that she’s a sinner in need of God’s saving grace, and that’s information enough to share.

Jesus tells us, ‘Unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels – a plentiful harvest of new lives.’ Too many Christians long to make disciples, but they just don’t know what to do, and so they ‘remain alone’, never reproducing their faith. Being the grain of wheat that dies means dying to our will, our ways, our ego, and our fears. When we risk all that, we suddenly begin noticing where God is at work in people’s lives. We realise we’re empowered to expose them to the truth and to be an example to them. And when they see how easy this process is, we’ll be able to rapidly mobilise them to go and do the same.

Discipling someone to faith really is this simple. You can do everything we’ve been learning about. Hear afresh Jesus’ words and go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He’s with you!

This plan was adapted from the series Disciple to Faith, on RightNow Media. To find out more, visit: https://www.rightnowmedia.org/au/get-access