12 ways to better understand being a disciple.

26Nov
by Jon Swanson

On January 4, I posted these as 12 ways to understand being a disciple in 2012. They were from a sermon on January 1. I realized that I needed to look at them again before the year was over. I thought you might be interested, too.

  1. You could be baptized.
  2. You could start to understand that God doesn’t want us all to be the same. He proves that by not making us all the same. For some of us, that means that we have the freedom to not try to be someone else. For others of us, that means we have to quit trying to turn people into us.
  3. You could figure out how to have the first thing you do every morning be to offer up your life to God. To every morning honestly say, “you are God, I am not. I’m glad you love me.”
  4. You could spend some time not thinking about the follower part of being a follower. Instead, think about the Jesus part.
  5. You could design a program of spiritual growth for people who aren’t engineers.
  6. You could stop asking Jesus to fix things and being disappointed when he doesn’t. And all the while, Jesus is saying, “I’m with you. Yoo hoo, I’m with you. When you stop fussing, when you stop telling me how to run the universe, I’m here.”
  7. You could actually believe that there were lots of people living while Paul was alive that were not Paul and yet were completely committed to following Jesus.
  8. You could for a month give up reading any stories but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because the way to get to know someone’s voice is to listen to them. The way to learn to talk like someone is to listen to them.
  9. You could remember that Jesus corrected the people he loved but he still loved them.
  10. You could remember that Jesus called us to obey more than he called us to point out sin.
  11. You could laugh.
  12. You could decide to respond to Jesus’ call to follow.

9 thoughts on “12 ways to better understand being a disciple.”

  2. Frank Reed

    Nice work as always Jon. So easy to get caught up in ‘life’ without actually living it. If I can just take the time to do one of things on this list in a day I will be living a more Christ-centered existence. Hate that I used the word ‘if’ but I did, didn’t I?

    Hope all is well with you and yours.

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    1. Jon Swanson

      I understand the “if”. And often, the next first step is changing that to “when”. On the other hand, your comment is actually taking time to do one thing on the list. So we are already at when.

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  3. Joseph Ruiz (@SMSJOE)

    Thanks for the list Jon as usual the timing is inspired. There is a lot to think about in these points often I am too quick to pick out a few that I think are relevant today I am going ask the Counselor for some help I suspect He may have a few thoughts.
    Gratefully,
    Joe

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