DSMN DB1
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Feb 20, 2024
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A disciple of Christ is someone who follows Jesus and embarks on becoming more like Christ as they are led and transformed by the Spirit. The process of becoming a disciple is a divinely inspired, progressive transformation in a person, as that person responds to God’s grace.
As Jim Putman puts it “a disciple is a person who is following Christ (head); is being changed by
Christ (heart); is committed to the mission of Christ (hands),” showing that there is a mental, spiritual and a physical response that occurs in a person when they encounter grace.
1 God’s grace draws a person to surrender their life to Christ as the new believer learns to “recognize and accept who Jesus is as Lord, leader, and master of our lives.”
2 As a disciple learns
to trust God increasingly more, and learns to surrender control to God, a transformation occurs inside the disciple as they respond to grace. God changes a person so that they begin to think and
act more like Christ as they are changed by the Holy Spirit thus, “responding to the call to follow
Jesus meant allowing him to unmake them and then remake them into his image—as his disciples.”
3 As the disciple grows in faith and begins to think and act more like Jesus, a hunger and desire to join Jesus begins, “this means that we join Jesus on his mission to love and reach a lost and hurting world.”
4 When the Holy Spirit gives us the heart and desires of Jesus, we passionately seek to go out on the same mission to go love and serve and help the lost come to Christ. Overall this process of transformation to become more like Jesus is called sanctification. Sanctification is a result of abiding in Christ as we are slowly changed by the Spirit. This change that occurs by being filled by Jesus is explained by Rob Dempsey as he notes, “obviously as the life of Jesus streams through the disciple, the personality of Jesus will be formed in the disciple. The more of Jesus that flows through you, the more like Jesus you will be.”
5 As we abide in Christ and are changed by His love, we begin to bear the spiritual fruits that reflect Jesus. The Apostle Paul posits that grace has set us free and that this freedom from sin in Christ, by grace produces fruit (Galatians 5:22-23 NLT). Paul explains that these fruit that manifest from our freedom in Christ are to be used to serve others in partnering in mission with Jesus. As Paul states, “
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13 NLT).” In summary a disciple is a vessel of God’s Holy Spirit to act out the mission of Christ on earth. It is God’s grace that draws a person to become a disciple, God’s grace that transforms the disciple into becoming more like Christ, and God’s grace that imbues a disciple with the passions
and desires to love the lost and point them back to the source of grace. As Paul states “
For we are
God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10 NLT),” showing that a disciple is God’s masterpiece that He crafts to be a vessel to live out and continue the mission of Christ Jesus to this lost world.
[1] Jim Putman et al, Disciple Shift: Five Steps That Help Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013) 51, accessed March 18, 2020, https://app.wordsearchbible.com
[2] Ibid., 46
[3] Ibid., 48
[4] Ibid., 49
[5] [Rod Dempsey., Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and Confidence.
(
Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group 2018) 15, accessed March 18, 2020, https://app.wordsearchbible.com
Jim Putnam et al,
DiscipleShift: Five Step That Help Your to Church Make Disciples Who Make Disciples
, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013),
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