Discipleship Part One

Discipleship Part 1

Today's Christianity has largely set aside discipleship as the extra-curricular activity for those who wants to be more holy or pious. But when Jesus began his ministry, discipleship was essential to those who believed in him and his message.

We hear the gospel of "minimal entrance requirements." It tells us we need to know the right things about Jesus and we will go to heaven when we die. The problem with this approach to Christ is that it will leave the person's life largely untouched by the kingdom of heavens that Jesus preached is available to us. As Dallas Willard points, people who believes minimal entrance requirement to getting into heaven would say to Jesus, "Thank you Jesus for getting me to heaven. Now, I must get on with my life."

When we look at the Jesus' life, we see that Jesus himself was a disciple to his Father. More accurately, He was his Father's Son and learned from him how to live his life. And that is what He calls us to do: to follow Him as He has followed his Father.

When faced with a tribulations, I often find myself in the shoes of disciples; fleeing as the disciples did when soldiers came to arrest Jesus. Only through intentional discipleship under Jesus would we begin to have Christ-like character to trust his Father unto Cross.

Here Not Yet

"You are never going to die and there is nothing you can do about it." - D. Willard

      We live in a world that constantly tells us, "You will die and there is nothing you can do about it." What if that is far from the truth? What if the truth is that we will live forever and there is nothing one can do to stop that? How much of what we do is based on an assumption that we will live forever? Would we be so preoccupied with busyness if we realize that we are eternal beings?

      I now start to believe the above statement to be true. And not only that, we have an abundant life available to us through Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God is where what God wants done is done. It is the "range of God's effective will," as Dallas Willard would say. The Creator of the universe has called us to live interactively with his kingdom and enjoy abundant life through our transformation into little Christs. How can we not at least give this invitation a try?

      I think many times we are blinded by the alternate narrative to the Kingdom of heavens. We have gospel of "minimum entrance requirement," as John Ortberg says. We believe if we know right things about Jesus that we will enter "heaven" in our afterlife. But according to Jesus, our heaven life starts now (Matthew 4). Kingdom of heaven is available to us and we must rethink the our thinking about life. Our eternal life begins here and now.

      This blog is my attempt to record my journey in the kingdom of heaven; to answer the questions posed above. If you are reading this, I hope this will be helpful to you in some way. I hope that a seed will be sown in a fertile ground and yield its fruit in season. And above all, I hope and pray that God's name will be glorified in my inadequate words.

"Repent (rethinking your thinking), for the kingdom of heavens is at hand" - Jesus of Nazareth

Invitation: please feel welcomed to leave your thoughts or questions. Consider this an open invitation for constructive criticism, encouragement, and other thoughts you have.

Disclaimer: Many of my thoughts, I owe them to others who are far more wiser than me. Among them are Dallas Willard, John Ortberg, David Kim, C. S. Lewis, and Frank Labauch. If something sounds familiar, there will be good chance it came from these wise men. I do not claim their work as mine. I will try my best to give credit where it is due but sometimes it is hard to distinguish where they begin and I stop.