Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
A helpful Scripture that provides a guide for a ‘method for discipleship’ comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. This method for discipleship is quite simple. It is easy to memorize and every Christian can do it! Here are four helpful aspects to this method for discipleship.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 — "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. "You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. "You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
1. KNOW!
Discipleship begins with your own convictions. You cannot give to others what you yourself do not have. In the context of Deuteronomy 6, Moses exhorts the Israelites to know their God so that they can pass on truth about Israel’s God to their children. When Christians seek to disciple, they must know God. They must know who He is, what He does, how He works, how He has worked, and what He promises! Discipleship necessitates a proper foundation: the right knowledge of God. As you grow in your walk with Christ, strive to know Him more!
2. GROW!
Moses tells the Israelites to love the LORD with all their heart, soul and might. Indeed, all the words from God that Moses spoke to Israel should rest on their heart and should guide them, guard them, and prompt their growth. To be a healthy disciple is to be a growing disciple. It is impossible to live the Christian life in neutral and in a perpetual state of being stagnant. Either people are growing closer to Christ or drifting further from Christ. God’s plea to Israel of old and to His people today is to love Him with their hearts, their soul, and their being/might. Indeed, the man of God allows the Spirit of God to impress the Word of God upon his heart so that he can grow stronger.
3. SOW!
To neglect discipling one’s immediate family in order to disciple others in the body of Christ is to have misplaced priorities. Every Christian should take diligent effort to disciple those that God has allotted to his care in the home by sowing the Word into them perpetually. God told the people of Israel to teach all the commands diligently to their children and even to talk of them at all seasons of the day. It is always fitting to talk about the Word of God and the God of the Word. Parents must take diligent measures to sow the Word into their children’s hearts. They must read the Word with them, instruct them in theology, teach them the character of God, explain the wonders of the gospel, and model for them the pursuit of holiness. Learn about God, grow with Him, and then sow it in your kids.
4. GO!
When a person knows God, is growing with God, is training his own family in the Word of God, then he should go and train others in the body of Christ in the Scriptures. Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples. He told them to actively, intentionally, boldly, courageously go! He did not ask them to go; He instructed them to go! He did not negotiate with them or compromise with an easier strategy; rather, he commanded that they go and make disciples. O that every Christian viewed himself as a disciple of Christ (learner/follower) and also and at the same time a disciplemaker for Christ (a replicator/leader). Disciplers do not live perfect lives; they obediently and humbly go!
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