(Here is the blog I sent out accidentally last week…)

I wrote yesterday about the importance of the picture on the box when working a jigsaw puzzle, and I compared it to the “profile of a disciple” that we sometimes teach churches to think through. If we’re going to make something, we should have a pattern to follow, yes?

I suggest that a good starting place is, “What did Jesus think a disciple looks like?” In turns out, he used the word disciple only three times in the Gospel of John.

• A disciple knows and obeys God’s Word (John 8.31)
• A disciple loves others (John 13.34, 35)
• A disciple bears fruit (John 15.8)

Disciples are people of the Word:

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. (John 8.31, NKJV)

This is why I write often about our daily time with God. Paul is clear in 2 Timothy 3.16, 17 that we can’t be people of God apart from the Word of God.

Disciples love and serve others:

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you… A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.14, 15, 34, 35, NKJV)

Love isn’t just warm feelings, it’s self-sacrificial service, as I mentioned a few days ago. Love also would work itself out in Holy Moments that I’ve written about frequently.

Disciples bear fruit:

By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples…You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. (John 15.8, 16, NKJV)

There are a lot of ways to bear fruit, as I wrote before, beginning last February 4. And verse 16 reminds us that we bear fruit in two ways: one in modeling godly character, making good work, and all the other ways that I introduced last year; the other is helping others do that too: “go and bear fruit that remains.”

So you can see that a lot of what I write is driven by my understanding of what a disciple is!

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, NKJV)