The Signs of a Christian?

Jesus came to this earth for more than just one reason. One of those reasons was to be an example. He came here to show us the Father. To show us God. He also came here to take the condemnation we deserve for violating God's covenant through what the bible describes as SIN. That condemnation for violating Gods covenant is death. 

For the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). 

So His death on the cross, the penalty of execution for a criminal, a law breaker, was Gods way of paying the wages we owed. It was on the cross that ALL the sins of humanity were laid on Jesus which resulted in Jesus experiencing ALL the wrath of God or judgment that was due us. This also was the beginning of the end of the destructive works of the Devil.  And while He went about His ministry, along the way He also gathered up people to follow Him - called disciples.

The gospels tell us that Jesus was popular.

‘Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.’ (Matthew 4:25 NIV)

“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus,” (Luke 14:25 NIV).

Yet He told them, " “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26, 27).

He also said, “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33).

He turned to the crowds that were following Him and three times He said to them,
“... cannot be my disciple,"
" ... cannot be my disciple,"
" ... cannot be my disciple."
In other words He was saying, "I am not looking for crowds; I'm looking for disciples."

How do you recognize a disciple?

What does he or she look like?

What are their characteristics?

Are you a disciple?

Am I a disciple?

There are a few passages in the Scripture having to do with the characteristics of a disciple. They can conveniently be boiled down to four signs of discipleship. When you see these four, you have a disciple.

RECOGNIZING WHO GOD IS AND WHO YOU ARE

God is perfect, just, and holy and loves His creation. The Bible teaches that God is opposed to sin and evil, that he is holy and righteous.  Humanity is desperately wicked, not only as a whole but right down to each individual, apart from Jesus. We know that eventually He will quarantine evil in perfect justice from good when he creates the New Heaven and Earth (Rev. 21).

 

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. …. “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…. “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25:31-46)

At that time, God will physically separate those who love him from those who don’t. Now those that love Him will also hate sin not only in the world around them but also within themselves. Those who love him will no longer be in the presence of sin, when he comes again to reign on earth, from that point forward. Until then, God tolerates the presence of sin in order to accomplish his purposes with mankind. Because if God truly could not be in the presence of sin, none of us would be here! It’s the old adage, “Why doesn’t God stop all the things that cause evil?” Then the question that must follow, “Are you ready for him to start with you?” “Are you ready to be turned to dust?” We are broken and full of sin.

However, in this world and even within Christian circles today they want to downplay the utter sinfulness of people. The world doesn’t want to hear how really bad off they are. When Adam and Eve first rejected Gods love and sinned against him, the eternal life they were to experience in their bodies was done away with. God told them that “since from it (the ground) you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen 3:19) We are just bags of dirt. I describe our condition to a young minister this way and he was offended by this description. Modern day preachers want to tickle the ears of this politically correct thinking unbelieving generation by telling them they are masterpieces just waiting to be cleaned up. However, God does want to take these bags of dirt and turn them into bags of gold. The bible calls this a new creation. The only people that had the perfect image of God as a description of them were Adam and Eve and Jesus. That imagine was shattered when our first parent rebelled against God. The rest of humanity that followed were sinners, born as darkness in need of a savior to bring them into the light. “for you were formerly darkness” (Eph 5:8), “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. (Rom 3:10-11).

You here people who want to justify themselves as not being that bad or justify why someone else really isn’t that bad by saying things like “They really have a good heart.” Or “I have a good heart.” However the bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV) It’s tragic when you have ministers nodding in agreement with people that make these kind of statements.

Jesus said it was the person that had the correct evaluation of themselves and a correct view of God that had the beginnings of being a disciple of his.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'  “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14 NIV)

Jesus reminded us of this condition. Most people want to hide from it. When he was invited over to a religious person’s home one day for a meal Jesus paints a picture that drives this point home.

“Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

 “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.  Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:36-47 NIV)

It’s this inability of people to except the truth of how wretched they really are and of Christians, whether ministers or non-ministers, to share this necessary truth with those that need the gift of eternal life, that brings into question ones commitment to being a disciple of Jesus by their love and need for Him and that deep understanding of how wretched we are apart from him. Like Jesus, Love tells the truth no matter how uncomfortable it may make you or your hearers. This is a sign in the life of a believer. “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Timothy 4:16 NIV)

IDENTIFIED WITH CHRIST

A second sign of a disciple is that they are a person who is identified with Jesus Christ. It is someone who will openly admit that he belongs to Christ. In the New Testament one of the first outward expressions of an individual to show the public at large that they are a follower of Jesus Christ was baptism. Baptism is an outward demonstration of an inward statement that a person has turned away from a sin filled, God rejecting, self-centered life to a commitment of living a life in the steps and way of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

There is this contemporary story of a man, which was probably similar to the first follower of Jesus Christ of a Jewish man led to Christ in Dallas. A few weeks later a friend told another Jewish man, a non-Christian, about the first one. Immediately the second man asked, "Has he been baptized yet?" This friend said, "No, he hasn't," he replied, "Well, he'll never last." It was later, when the first Jew was baptized, that his family cut him off because had made open identification with Jesus Christ.

“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9, 10). 

An open identification with Jesus Christ. Jesus promised, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. (Matthew 10:32).

On one occasion Jesus asked the disciples, “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ. (Mark 8:29). It seems everything in His ministry led up to this.

But the thing that strikes me is that then “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again." (Mark 8:31). A little later He called the multitude and His disciples to Him and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me… If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34, 38).

I was at this church planting seminar when these to young ordained ministers were pitching there idea of opening up a place where people could gather in a social environment and also have rooms in this place for people to do work for school or business. When they were asked about how the gospel message would be shared in this environment one of the minister said, “We’d be incognito about that. After all Jesus was telling people all the time not to tell other what he had done for them.”

I was thinking were did this person get his training as a disciple of Jesus Christ? How tortured does someone have to be inside to take scripture out of its context to justify trying to be a professed follower of Jesus Christ without telling people about Jesus? Or what's even worse is that somehow they thought they were going to set up some kind of a bait and switch atmosphere which would be even worse because that is nothing but dishonestly and the ways of the world.

There is this story about a business man that went forward at a Billy Graham crusade to receive Jesus. The following Sunday night he went to a church that he sometimes attended. After the service he walked up to one of the leading elders in this church and told him, "I was at the Billy Graham meeting last week out at the ball park. I went forward and received Christ."

"I heard about it and I am delighted," the elder replied. Then the businessman asked the elder, "How long have you and I been associated in business?"

"About 23 years, I think."

"Have you known Christ as your Savior all those years?" the man asked the elder.

"Yes, I have," he answered.

"Well, I don't remember your ever speaking to me about Jesus during those years," the man said. The elder hung his head, and the man continued, "I have thought highly of you. In fact, I thought so highly of you that I felt if anyone could be as fine a man as you and not be a Christian, then I didn't have to be a Christian either."

This elder had lived a good life in front of his friend, but he had not taken the added step of openly identifying with Jesus, who enabled him to live that kind of life. Here was a fine man, who had the first sign but he did not have this second sign of a disciple of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus asks you to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Him, what do you think it means? Whatever else it means, I think it means to be identified with Christ, not only when it's popular but when it's unpopular. Not only when it's the thing to do but when it seems as if it's not the thing to do. I like the way the New English Bible puts Revelation 1:9. John writes, "I was on the island called Patmos because I had preached God's Word and borne
my testimony to Jesus."

Do you take any opportunity to admit that you are a follower of Jesus Christ? Why not determine that at the first opportunity this week you will quietly, graciously, but openly identify yourself with Jesus Christ? I rarely tell people I’m a Christian now a day because this can mean so many different things to people in our culture. That really has nothing to do with what the bible teaches us about what a real Christian is. A person can say they’re an American and the label of Christian is attached. The same goes for an institutionalize religious affiliation like Mormon or Jehovah Witness. I usually tell people I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe this is an undeniable sign of a person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

OBEDIENT TO THE WORD

A disciple is not only a believer who is visibly identified with the person of Christ, he is also obedient to the Word of Christ, to the Scriptures. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

"Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples." (John 8:31). In other words, if you don’t let go of it and you apply it to your life, then you are my disciple.

Luke records what happened one day when a crowd of people listening to Jesus preach. One woman in the crowd, as she listened to Jesus, something welled up within her. Perhaps she had a son who was wayward, and as she looked at Jesus and she wished her son were like Him. Or maybe she had never had a son and had always wanted to have one. Anyway she spoke up, she shouted out, and said, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” (Luke 11:27).  Jesus' answer to her is noteworthy. He said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28). That’s the true blessing, to hear what God has to say and to do it.

Jesus talks to this man who wants eternal life. (Matthew 19:16-22) The man claims to believe in God and follow Gods ways. However, when Jesus exposes his halfhearted commitment the man walks away sad.  The man spoke a good game but when it came down to really doing what God wanted his words proved to be empty.

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and ‘love your neighbor as yourself. '” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

To be really happy you need to go all the way in your commitment to receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And this means to be obedient to the Word of Christ.

Obedience is necessary also for strength of commitment. The greatest sermon ever preached was the Sermon on the Mount. We need to take note of how Jesus concluded it. He said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:24-27).

What made the difference between the wise man and the foolish man? It wasn't knowledge, because they both heard the same sermon. They went to the same conference; they had the same knowledge. They both heard the Word. The both read the same bible. Not only that, they had the same circumstances. It says that the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house of the wise man. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house of the foolish man. The circumstances were the same.

One couldn't say, "Well, you don't know how tough it is where I come from." "Well, you don't know what kind of a family life I've got." "You don't know how I suffer down at work." It wasn't their circumstances that made the difference. One thing made the difference between wisdom and foolishness. One obeyed the Word; the other one did not.

Jesus said, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”  (John 14:21). What does that mean? It means Jesus will make Himself real to him or her. To whom? To the one who has His Word and keeps it.

Here’s an illustration of the truth that a disciple must be obedient to the Word of Christ is in these words of Jesus, " “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. “(Matthew 5:23, 24).

When was the last time you went and made something right with someone you wronged? When did you admit to your wife/husband or your children that your outburst of anger was sin? It's amazing to me when couples say that neither one has ever asked forgiveness of the other. If you don't find some times when you've got to make some things right, you're about ready for heaven right now. A disciple has a very sensitive conscience when it comes to offense toward God and people.

Someone might say "I can’t go into full time ministry?"

That’s right, they don’t because as a disciple of Jesus Christ we are always full time ministers’ right where we are at. Remember when Jesus called his first disciples along the shores of the Sea of Galilee? It says Jesus called and they dropped their nets and followed him. Meaning they left their business, there source of income for themselves and probably some family members that dependent on them. However, I believe, even though Jesus wants all people to follow him, he doesn't ask everyone to drop their nets. He wants people to stay where they are at and to be a light to those in their sphere of influence. (Unless you are working in a sinful business)  Right where you live. Your neighborhood. Where you go to school. Your work place. I find that God usually leads you to the next step after you take this one. That's where you start.

I'm not speaking of going to the mission field or some full time ministry job because you're so sick and tired of the office you can't stand it, or because the boss has bugged you for years and any change would be an improvement. I'm speaking of obedience to the Word of Christ, wherever it may lead and when the going is tough. That's a sign of a disciple.

After Moses died, Joshua had the job of taking about 2 million people into the Promised Land. That included women, children and livestock. God gave him some instructions. You'd think the Lord would say, "Now, look, here's how you'd handle this problem, here's how you do this, here's how you do that." But, no. He said, "Joshua, one thing above all else is going to take a lot of courage, and it's not leading all these people and facing all the enemies that are in the land. That isn't what's going to take courage." But, “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go." (Joshua 1:7).

You may think it doesn't take courage to be obedient to the Word of God. But I wonder how obedient we really are to the Word. We live in a Christ rejecting world, and anyone who is going to live in obedience to the ways of Jesus is going to come into conflict with it. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22 NIV) That's how you recognize a disciple. They do more than hear the Word. They puts into practice what they've heard and at the same time they don’t take credit but point to Him that deserves all the credit, Jesus Christ the Son of God, God the son. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 NIV)

We need to make up our minds that God helping us with the power of the Holy Spirit, we are going to be obedient to the Word of Christ. That's a sign of a disciple. They seek to follow the Bible and do what it says no matter what.

FRUITFUL FOR CHRIST

A disciple is someone who understands who God is and who they are before him. Second they openly identified with the person of Jesus Christ. Third, they are obedient to the Word of Christ. And fourth, they are bearing fruit in the work of Christ. "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." (John 15:8).

Now it seems to me that there are two kinds of fruit here. First, the fruit of character, the fruit of the Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22, 23).

And second, there's fruit by way of influencing the lives of others for Christ. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 NIV)  "Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:13, 14 NIV)

Jesus sent out the twelve two by two. He gave them authority over unclean spirits. They went out and preached that men should repent. They cast out demons and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them. "Do you think Judas did this? Do you think Judas went out and preached to people to repent? Do you think Judas cast out demons and healed the sick?"

Some feel they can prove that Judas was never saved. Let's assume they're right. Did Judas then preach that people should repent? Did he cast out demons? Did he heal the sick? Could he have? 

Look at Jesus' words: “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'  (Matthew 7:22, 23)

My point was that we get so carried away with the spectacular that we think the spectacular is the supreme evidence that we are real disciples or Spirit-filled. But the real evidence is shown in our character, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We're considering here the character of a disciple. It has been said that the Apostle Paul before he was converted, would pray something like this every day, "God, I thank You that I am not a Gentile, that I am not a slave and that I am not a woman." But look at how God changed his attitude. In his first letter he wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28). Here is evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in the way of character.

This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It includes one's whole attitude, outlook, character and relationship to others. By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you can work great miracles, give and be involved with charities or expound on scripture with great skill? No. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35).

When Jesus talked about His ministry and what He came to do, He quoted from Isaiah 61:1, 3, “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners... to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."

Take this world in which we live with all of its attractiveness, its celebrity and its appearance. Strip all of this away, and how would you characterize the real world underneath? Brokenhearted, captive, bound, anxious, sad, depressed.

A disciple is one who gets involved in that kind of world, who is bearing fruit in the work of Jesus Christ. He shows the fruit of the Spirit in a Christ like character: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. How we need that in the world in which we live!

THE GREATEST IS LOVE

What did Jesus say was the greatest identifying mark of all in a disciple? Love. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples,” if you do what? "if you love one another."

One of the greatest illustrations of this was on the television special "James Emory Bond.” It was an entire one-hour interview with a black man who was an ex-truck driver. He was in his seventies at the time of the interview. Apparently he lived in Baltimore. One night he watched a panel discussion with some of the city leaders, mayor, and chief of police and others on television. They discussed the race and juvenile delinquency problems in Baltimore. As he watched, his heart was really moved.

The next day he went down to the television station. He wanted to talk to somebody because he had been so moved by their discussion. He said he knew the answer, but he didn't know whom to tell. At the station they had the good sense not only to interview him, but also to videotape it. All you saw was this grey-haired gentleman as he answered questions coming from off camera.

He said, among other things, that when he was a young fellow growing up on the edge of Baltimore, the white boys would throw rocks at him as he was on his way to school. He began to hate white people. As a young man he started working as a truck driver. One morning when he saw the milk truck go by, he thought how nice it would be if he could just have a little milk before he went to work in the morning.

He stopped the milkman, who was a white man, one day and asked him if he would leave him a quart of milk. He said, "No, I don't deliver milk to ni**ers."

"So," Bond said, "I called up the milk company, and I asked the man I talked with if this was true, that they didn't give milk to black people. He said, 'No, that's not right. We do deliver milk to black people, and we'll see that he delivers the milk.'

"So," he said, "the milk came, a quart each morning. Several weeks went by and I realized that he wasn't leaving me a bill, and I wanted to pay for it. So I stopped him one morning and said, 'I want you to give me a bill so I can pay for this.' And the milkman said, 'I don't take money from ni**ers.' 

So I said, 'Well, I've got to pay you, you've just got to let me pay you.'

"'Well,' the milkman said, 'tell you what you do. You put the money on the fence post.' "

James Emory Bond said, "I thought I'd have a little fun with him, so I said, 'Now I won't feel like paid you unless I put it in your hand.' 'No sir,' he said, 'put it on the post.' So I said, 'OK.' And I put it on the post. When the milkman reached out to take the change, I just laid my hand on top of his. And he jerked it away."

Then he said, "Later on, one of God's servants by the name of Billy Sunday came to our town, and he told how Jesus Christ died on the cross to take away man's sin and his enmity of heart toward his fellowman. As I heard that, I realized that I needed this, and I walked the sawdust trail. And you know, God took the hate out of my heart for the white man. He put love there."

Apparently a few days later, unknown to him, the milkman went to hear Billy Sunday. He went forward in the meeting, received Christ, and a couple days later pulled up in front of James Emory Bond's little place. With tears streaming down his face, he apologized for the way he had treated him. And this dear old black man said, "I have loved him, and he has loved me ever since."

Now that's what discipleship means. There is a sign of a disciple. Bearing fruit in the work of Jesus Christ. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When we begin to see more disciples sprinkled around America and around the world, what a difference it will make! Real genuine disciples who will turn the world upside down. There are many already, and we ought to be praying for them.

But not only is there the fruit of Christ like character, but also the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of others. Jesus said, " You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” (John 15:16).

Go and produce fruit. Paul wrote to the Romans of his desire, “that I might have a harvest among you," (Romans 1: 13). He meant lives influenced for Jesus.

Let's ask ourselves:

Am I a true disciple?

Am I willing to be openly identified with the person of Jesus Christ?

Am I seeking to be obedient to the Word of Christ in my everyday life?

Am I bearing fruit in the work of Jesus Christ, by way of Christ like character and by influencing the lives of others?

I want to be a disciple. I want to have these signs and characteristics in my life. The only thing I'd like to do beyond that is to help make disciples and to get them to help make others. That’s what Jesus wants done.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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.” Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

Thank you Lorne Sanny