Discipleship: A Testimony
We often think of discipleship as one going through lessons from a book about the Bible with someone that is new in the faith or someone that is not saved yet. But when we look at how discipleship looked like with Jesus and his disciples we see that there was no book and no lesson by lesson being taught just so that we can finish a book.
Jesus’ way of discipleship was life on life and that is the way that he trained His men to take the Gospel to the world. I can tell that the books do help but it is not all about just going through the books with someone but it is more about spending time with that person. As you spend time with someone not only will they learn the lessons that we have for them to teach but they will see those lessons being lived out in our lives as we walk with God and show them also how to do it.
As I look back at my life I realize that I was discipled by many people. One of them in particular was a person that I admire and love very much, our church treasurer, Brother John. He once asked me to help him translate the discipleship lessons that we use at the church and as I helped him translate them not only was I learning more and more about our God but I was also learning about how Brother John lived out his christian life. I saw that he very much cared about God’s Word, I saw how he was willing to get to the church early just so that we could learn more about the Bible. I saw how much he loved to teach about our great and amazing God so much that he learned Spanish fluently so that he could use it for God’s work. Don’t get me wrong, the lessons helped me a lot, but what helped me the most was seeing the devotion of Brother John and his life being lived out as a living sacrifice for our God.
Another person that has really impacted my life is my pastor, Austin Gardner. He is a person that has lived his entire life to serve our God and to wants to see many people trust in Christ throughout the whole entire world. He is very contagious, you always want to be around him because he lives out what he believes. He is all about God’s Word and all about doing what it says in the book. Every day you see him doing all he can do for our God and all you want to do is just copy his desire to want to be used by God to do great and amazing things for His name’s sake. I try my hardest to be around him all of the time so that I not only can learn more about our great God but also so that I can learn more about how to walk with my heavenly Father just as my Pastor does.
As you can see, yes, there are lessons all the time, but lessons by themselves do not do it, there needs to be what Jesus did with his disciples, “withness.” There needs to be a life on life approach to discipleship, people need to see the lessons that you teach from that book being lived out in you so that they know also how to live out the lessons that they learn every week.
About the Author
Miguel and Mariangela Sanabria have been missionaries in Medellin, Colombia since 2018. Find out more about the
