Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite meme?

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Jesus made forgiveness a requirement for discipleship. He said: “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14)

Jesus made disciples. Then He told His disciples to make disciples by training people to obey everything that He had originally trained them to do. This was supposed to be an ongoing process that repeated itself throughout history. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Then somehow along the way the process of training people to be disciples halted and Christians evolved from being self-denying, daily cross bearing, obedient followers of the risen Jesus, (Luke 9:23) into being mostly lukewarm in their faith. (Revelation 3:14-17) Perhaps it is time for Christians to rediscover and begin to wholeheartedly apply the lost art of disciple making throughout each day.

Before a Christian can make disciples he or she must become a disciple. But how can we become one? Jesus gave three requirements for being His disciple. You must do three things: 1) deny yourself, 2) take up your personal cross daily, and 3) follow and Him.

Self-denial is extremely painful. It requires that you lay down your own desires for Christ’s desires — that you give up your will for His will. To deny yourself is to completely set aside self-focus.

Deny yourself, but don’t deny your cross — don’t deny or run from the situations in life that cause you trouble, pain, heartbreak, and great difficulty. Those situations are your cross. Allow them to humble you and train you to continually and desperately cry out to, draw near to, and stay near to the risen Jesus.

Follow Jesus. To follow Christ is to listen to Him speak within you (John 10:27) and to faithfully say and do what he tells you to. It is to keep His commandments. (John 14:15) It is to be a doer of His word, not merely a passive hearer. (James 1:22-25)

So, what is discipleship? Discipleship is to follow and obey the risen Jesus throughout each day as you let Him lead and guide you from within by the Holy Spirit, moment-by-moment.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” Refuse to settle for less than genuine faith.