Make Disciples
Ask six Christians what God has called His Church to do and you’re likely to get six different answers.
But anyone reading Matthew’s gospel would have been struck by Jesus’ final instructions to His disciples “… go and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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 …” (Matthew 28:19,20). The word translated “nations” means “people groups,” so the commission is not automatically to go overseas to other nations, but to evangelise all people equally without respect to their colour, age, gender or any cultural or national background. Water baptism is not only a symbol of the death of our old life and resurrection into the new, but was the early church’s outward sign that the one being baptised was now a dedicated follower of Christ.
Central to Christ’s command is the commission to “make disciples” who would easily be identified by their desire “to obey everything (Jesus) commanded.” We can only assume that someone claiming to be a Christian who doesn’t want “to obey everything (Jesus) commanded” is not a disciple, and so has not and is not experiencing “normal” Christianity. Because anything less than normal is subnormal, we could say their experience is subnormal.
Discipleship is a command and not a choice. Discipleship was never designed for the super-Christians. It was part of Christ’s design for every Christian and that means you .
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