The life of discipleship: A foundation for discipleship

Matthew 11:29–30; 28:19, 20

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

The words of the destitute prostitute as quoted by Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing About Grace? are haunting. When she came to the end of her rope, this young woman was searching for answers to her brokenness.

Asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help, she responded, “Why would I ever go there? I already feel terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

If faith in Christ is the answer for a broken world, we who believe in Christ must demonstrate that faith actually transforms people.

Thousands of people in North America claim to be born again. But the shortage of people who are actually like Jesus – who really do what Jesus did – is remarkable.

Yet, doing the things that Jesus did is what makes us people like Jesus was.

And what did Jesus do?

He practiced habits of extended solitude, silence, meditation, concentrated prayer, fasting, intense worship, deep fellowship and consistent service.

We hardly ever do many of these things and yet we want to be like Jesus. The words attributed to G. K. Chesterton describe us too well: “Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting as it has been found difficult and left untried.”

Easy, restful, light?

In Matthew 11:29–30, Jesus invites his followers to come to him for rest. He tells them to wear his yoke, because “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Do we really believe that? Do we find the Christian life restful? Would anyone say that following Jesus is easy?

Or what about 1 John 5:3: “This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome . . .” (emphasis mine). Is that reality, or merely wishful thinking? Did Jesus actually expect us to obey all his commands, or are we only to try hard, recognizing we will usually fail?

We need to understand what following Jesus means. Think of a virtuoso in any field – sport, art, music, etc. How did the superstar get to be that way? It wasn’t by accident.

Success in any of those areas comes from hours spent in the gym or the practice room, lifting weights, learning scales, preparing for the anticipated moment in the spotlight. What superstars do when no one is watching prepares them for their day on the stage, when they must produce, and produce quickly and properly. The habits they develop in private prepare them to perform when the pressure is on.

Those habits are called disciplines.

All I’ve said leads to a general principle of human life: Successful performance depends on the depth of preparation of mind and body.

This is as true in the spiritual arena as in any other. We are saved by grace, of course. That’s a given. But grace alone does not prepare us for the life of following Jesus. Discipline is required for that.

What did Jesus do?

Jesus himself knew he needed to practice spiritual discipline. Although he was the Son of God, he did not avoid a life of preparation for his moment on the world stage.

What did he do for the first 12 years of his life that equipped him to sit with the elders in the temple, asking deep theological questions (Luke 2:46, 47)? What did he do for the next 18 years while he prepared for his public ministry, beginning at about age 30? He went into the wilderness after his baptism for more than six weeks (Luke 4: 1, 2). Why did he do that? During his three years of ministry, he often spent nights alone and in prayer. Why?

The answer to these questions is: Jesus practiced the disciplines that would prepare him for public ministry.

Out of the disciplines he learned and practiced, Jesus was able to live his public life in such a way that he consistently demonstrated teaching, healing and love to those around him. He maintained that spirit even in the midst of terrible crisis.

Matthew records Jesus as saying, “My yoke is easy.” But that can be true for us only if we live our lives as Jesus lived his, by learning the kind of disciplines he practiced.

One of the saddest ironies today is that by avoiding the disciplines of Jesus we believers also miss the easy yoke, the light burden, he promised us. The life of discipleship becomes something we try to do rather than something that flows naturally out of our being.

The secret of the easy yoke, says Dallas Willard, is “the absolute intention to live as Jesus lived in every area of my life.”

The great neglected part

In the great commission (Matthew 28:19, 20), Jesus gave his disciples and the church two assignments. The first was to baptize people in the name of the Trinity. Most of our churches do this.

The second assignment was to teach them “to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Do you know any church that expects its members to obey everything Jesus commanded, or has a plan to teach them how to do that? This is the great neglected part of the great commission. Many churches don’t even expect people to obey all of Jesus’ commands, let alone have any idea how to make it happen.

The only plan that can work – and it will work as history has demonstrated over and over again – is to teach people to use the disciplines Jesus practiced. By doing what Jesus did when he lived on this earth, we will be transformed into the kind of person Jesus was.

Perhaps this, at least in part, is what the apostle Paul meant in Romans 5:10 when he said that, “how much more, having been reconciled [through the death of God’s Son], shall we be saved through his life!” (emphasis mine).

We are saved not through Christ’s death only, but through Christ’s life. Spiritual disciplines are activities purposely undertaken to bring our personality and total being into cooperation with the divine order, following the life of Christ. We enter into practices that cooperate with grace to raise our life toward godliness.

If you long for the easy yoke, if you long to live a transformed life that answers to a broken world, walk the path of the disciplines with Jesus.

Next issue: the apostle Paul and the life of discipleship

For reflection

• What aspects of being a Christian are most challenging for me?
• Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Why is this an important promise for my own life of discipleship?
• As I reflect on Jesus’ life, which of his practices or habits surprise me? Draw me?

Jim Holm is president of Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, Fresno, Cal.