Fresh Start Devotionals

Discipleship Unfortunately, to many people discipleship is more of a program than a lifestyle. They fill their notebooks, making sure every blank is filled, with ferocious devotion, they memorize selected passages and meet with their accountability partners to see that they’ve crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” in their program. While none of these activities are bad, they aren’t necessarily discipleship. While discipleship involves actions, it has more to do with attitudes than actions. Unless the attitude is right, all of these activities can become an end in themselves. Following Christ, in my opinion, can never be boiled down to filling in a blank or attending a meeting it is far too organic for that. It may involve those things, but it is not those things. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s top adviser on National Security, is a regular church goer whose faith affects the way she lives her life. In an interview with Biography Magazine, she said her religious faith is “… very deeply who I am. I actually think it gives you a kind of optimism, a sense that you’re not the most important being on earth or in heaven. I think it leaves you feeling supported and not alone. It’s not as if when you’re facing some decision you say all right, how would a Christian deal with this … It’s just a kind of organic sense of who you are.” (Biography, Sept 2001, p. 63) Discipleship isn’t what you do. Being a disciple is who you are-it changes everything. Too many people are “trying to act Christian” instead of just being who they are a new creation in Christ. I’m not encouraging you to drop out of any program of discipleship you’re in. Keep filling in those blanks, memorizing those scriptures and meeting with your friends. But as you are doing it, remember that discipleship affects everything in your life, it doesn’t just apply to what happens on Tuesday night from 7:00 to 8:00. It is for all of your life for the rest of your life. Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).