WHO IS A CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE?
A Christian disciple is one who learns of Christ; who
follows Christ and obeys Him. Christ has very many disciples throughout the whole world today. Every Christian should be a disciple.
Discipleship is therefore a costly business; very costly. You follow God’s leading, no matter the
personal cost it involves. So, discipleship has a price. And because it is a costly business, 90% of
churchgoers are not disciples. This is unfortunate.
Singing does not make you a disciple. Ushering does not turn you to a disciple.
CONDITION FOR BEING A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST
1. Hatred to self: Luke 14: 26: “If any man come to
me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife,
and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be my disciple”.
So, the first condition is hatred. Does this mean that
we must hate those who are close to us? No. It
means that we must give the Lord supreme place in
our lives. It means that we must love Him better than we love anyone or anything else. Jesus must come first in our affection and there must be no rival.
A person sits down to wait before the Lord and wants to receive from Him. As she is reading her Bible, there is a knock at the door and somebody enters, a friend she loves. Then she drops her Bible, the quiet time and the meditation ends, and for the next three hours she is chatting with the visitor. “Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?” If you are, you will arrange your priority well. Jesus must come first in our affection. There must be no rivalry. That is what He is telling us. If a situation arises where we must make a difficult choice between obedience to our parents or obedience to Christ, we must put
Christ first. That is what he is saying.

2. Hatred to worldliness: Any Christian who can still
boldly stand in the middle of unbelievers’ party and
dance to worldly music, may the Lord have mercy
upon him. It means he is still very far from the Lord.
If a Christian still has friends who are only interested in parties, he is still far. He needs to recover himself today.

3. Carrying the cross: Luke 14:27 says, “And
whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after
me, cannot be my disciple.” These words are very
clear and emphatic. They mean that if we are not
bearing the cross of Jesus, and growing after Him, we are not true disciples. When we say cross, some people think it is a problem. No, no, it is not a problem that we are talking about.To bear the cross is to take up the cross and follow Jesus. It means you voluntarily share in His reproach and suffering. It means that the kind of suffering Jesus went through, you are willingly to share in it. It means you are willing to put aside your own dreams, your own plans, your own ambition and your own goals in exchange for the will of God. It means that in a situation where your desire and that of God are
opposite each other, you should follow that of God.
The cross that we are talking about
is that you are willing to put aside anything that
pleases you in order to follow the Lord.
To Jesus, the cross meant suffering and shame. It
meant laying down His life. This is what we find in
Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the
shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
throne of God.”
If we are to be Jesus’ disciples, we must be willing to
share His sufferings. Some people are ashamed to
carry their Bibles in the open. They hide it inside their bags. They don’t want people to call them fanatics.
To be His disciple means to be hated, persecuted and misunderstood as He was. To take up the cross,
means that we are willing to bear all the suffering
and shame, out of love for Jesus, who out of love for
us agreed to be numbered with the transgressors
and was crucified on the cross.

HOW DO WE PASS THE TEST OF DISCIPLESHIP?
Have we taken our stand openly for Jesus? Do our
friends and loved ones know that we are Christians?
Are you willing to deny yourself and bear shame and suffering, if it is necessary, because of Jesus? If you don’t carry your cross, He says, you cannot be His disciple.

THE CROSS
The cross is a place of death. It is a place of
humiliation. It is a place of suffering. It is a place of
self-mortification. It is the most wicked instrument of death devised by the heart of man; nails are forced through the palms and the ankles, the lungs stretch out and the body sags. The victim now suffocates. He dies painfully and slowly. That cross is the end of your old life. It destroys the old pattern, the pattern of Adam.
When your old life dies on the cross that is true
Christianity. Many people are coming to the church
but very few are recognized in heaven. Many even
call themselves pastors or ministers of God but they
are not recognized in heaven. Why? They fail to listen to the words of Jesus: "Whosoever does not bear His cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. "Art thou also one of this man’s disciples.
4. Forsaking all: Luke 14:33 says, “So likewise,
whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
Beloved, the Lord says that there are some miracles
He has not started doing because we believers are
not ready for them yet. There are a lot of things that
are disturbing the power of God from flowing.
What does it mean to forsake? It means that you
must forsake all that you have. It means that I must
reach the point where I can honestly say,” I am taking my hands off my life. I am taking my hands off my home. I am taking my hands off my loved ones. I am taking my hands off my money. I am taking my hands off my possession. I am taking my hands off all that I have. I am taking my hands off all I have looked upon as my own. I will henceforth look upon them as Jesus’ own. I will no longer have any claim to them.” That is what forsaking means.
There are boxes scattered in the church for people to put in money for the needy. I am sure that there are many people who have not put one kobo inside any of those boxes. It would be helpful for you to make a list of the things you regard as yours. They may be your wife, children, home, bank account, car, house and certificates. Make a list and hand them over to God. Recognise that they belong to Jesus. That songwriter says, “Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord to thee…" Take everything. That is what it means to forsake.
A true disciple would forsake everything to please the Master.

5. Continuity: In John 8:31, Jesus said to the Jews: “If
ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples
indeed.” Continuous, not temporary action, not acting when you feel like, not epileptic action. To continue means to abide in Christ, to grow up into Christ, to shape our lives in conformity with the word of God. It means that we should accept the word of God as the final authority in our lives. It means that we should seek day by day to live in submission to the word,and in obedience to the Lord.
Many churchgoers are not really getting ready for the Second Coming of Christ. They don’t pray up to half an hour a day. They don’t read their Bibles up to half an hour a day. They don’t witness to anybody. They just dress up, go into their cars, go to their places of work, come back, go to fellowship at times and go home and sleep. This is dangerous.
What Jesus sometimes wants us to do can conflict
with what we want to do or what our friends want us to do. We should be asking ourselves, “What does the Lord want of me? Why has He saved me and called me? There are so many that are roaming about, who are not saved, why did you save me? How will His glory be manifested in my life? Am I reading and
meditating and feeding on His word?”
“Art thou also one of this man’s disciples?” What is
the sense in coming to church when you do not want
to be a disciple? What is the sense in coming to
church when at the end of the day, the Lord will say,
“Who are you? I don’t know you. Where did you come
from?
Are you the type of person that God has been calling and talking to and you put His words aside while pursuing your own agenda? Are you the type that walk with your two eyes open into sin, and you come out and ask God to forgive you? And if He
forgives you, you walk into the sin again? When will you be serious with your MAKER