If you have been getting the idea that discipleship is much bigger than you thought from my last two posts…that is really my point.
The Church today seems to see discipleship as:
- something you do, not a way of life.
- being concerned about getting knowledge, when the Bible teaches it is about gaining wisdom.
- a specific curriculum to teach, when the curriculum is life not a book.
- a subject to master instead of giving mastery of life.
- as something we can do on our own instead of in life-on-life relationships.
Discipleship is too big to be packaged and put into a box. It is too big to be a program, a book study, or an eight-part video curriculum. Books can be a good resource. This series of posts can help. I don’t think I am wasting time and effort doing this series, but we shouldn’t think that when we are done with this reading that discipleship is over until we get to our next small group.
My girls are around me all the time, is there ever a time I should think that what I say and do is not being seen, not making an impact, not showing them that I am learning to love God with all my heart, soul, and strength and loving them as I love myself? When I am out and away from home and family, should I not by my example be showing how to love God and love others?
If you read the Gospels with an eye for this you will see it. Yes, Jesus did spend time teaching in the synagogue. He did spend formal time teaching His disciples like at in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). That is part of discipleship.
But a lot of what Jesus did was in response to the everyday things that just popped up.
- When Peter was concerned about paying the Temple tax in Matthew 17:24 Jesus used that opportunity to disciple him.
- In Matthew 24 when they were walking past the Temple and remarking on its beauty, that became a discipleship moment.
- When the disciples were talking about the news of the day that Pilate had killed people while they were making sacrifices at the Temple, that became a teaching moment (Luke 13:1-8).
Life was often the impetus for Jesus’ teaching His disciples. The same is true for us. The content is Scripture, the curriculum is life.
What I have been learning is that I need to be conscious of taking advantage of the opportunities that come in the everyday to model and teach discipleship.
Let me give you an example. (And yes, I got permission to share this story).
One afternoon I was sitting in my car waiting for my daughter Maggie to get out of school. Anna and Rachel were playing outside while we waited. After a few minutes, Anna came up to say hi to me with a friend of hers. From my vantage point in the car, for better or worse, I had a clear view up Anna’s nose, and I could see one side was just waiting to drop a load of snot.
I gave her a tissue and told her to blow her nose before things got messy. She took the Kleenex and dabbed at her nose. This was apparently just enough contact so that when she pulled the tissue away there was now a thin line of snot from her nose to the tissue. Of course she and her friend thought this was hilarious…
“O, Anna! That is dis-gust-ing!” I exclaimed, laughing with them. “Wipe it again!” This time after she wiped it you could see a thick curl of the green stuff going from one nostril to the other. This made them laugh all the more.
I got a new tissue, held it up to Anna’s nose and told her to blow. She did. The resulting sound was amazing. As I tried to pinch her nose clean it became clear that there was still a lot more of the vile gunk in there. I got a new tissue. “Blow, again.” She did. I could feel her nose vibrating as the stuff ripped out of her nose filling up the tissue. It was revolting…my palm was getting damp. “Again! Harder!” She did. It took 3 more tissues to get everything cleaned out to my satisfaction.
“Thank you daddy,” she said, “I feel a lot better!” She sounded a lot better too.
So where am I blowing…er, I mean…going with this?
Sometimes modeling or incarnating God’s love and grace to one another means being willing to be the person holding the Kleenex. This is not often a pleasant task. Hearing what people are struggling with, feeling their pain, and seeing their sin can wig you out like the feeling of a tissue breaking as a kid blows their nose into it.
But just as my love for my daughter made me willing to hold the tissue to her nose while she blew, we need to be loving enough with one another to administer grace in a hands-on and up-close kind of way, not backing away for fear we might get dirty and need to wash our hands. Remember, we are Jesus’ hands until He comes back, and that means we need to be willing to hold the Kleenex. That is one of the things hands do.
Do you see what I mean? God used that mundane, “everyday” event to teach me about how He loves and cares for me and in turn how He wants me to care for others. It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t looking for it. It was just life I was able to use that story to explain what being gracious means to my girls. And they got it.
Discipleship isn’t a program to attend or a set curriculum to be taught, it’s a way of life, a way of looking at life, a way of living life. After all, there isn’t any problem relating Jesus to anything, it’s un-relating Him, because He is already in everything.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 