Page 22 - Principles for Discipling Others-Student textbook

Study Section 5: What is a Disciple?

5.1 Connect.

You have two choices: you can run your own life or you can allow Christ to direct your life. It
is a daily choice. Today you can step aside and tell Christ that you want Him to control your
mouth, you thoughts, your paths and your attitude. He then will direct your way. But you
can also forget Him and take charge yourself. You can do what you want to do. But you will
find that when you do that, you will not have the power of Christ in your life, and you will
walk down many false paths. Today we are going to learn how to put Christ on the thrown
of our lives and learn how to keep Him there day after day.

5.2 Objectives:

1. We will learn what a disciple is and what discipleship involves from the perspective of the
discipled.

2. We will learn the spiritual anchors what will keep Christ in the center of our lives.

3. We will begin to learn how to seek the will of God in our lives.

5.3 What is a Disciple?

By definition, a disciple is a follower….one who accepts and assists in promoting the
thoughts, ideas, and ways of life of another person. A Christian disciple wants to be like his
Savior…. to do what Jesus did, to teach others what He taught, and to be like his Savior.
“Discipleship” is the process by which disciples grow in Christ and are equipped by the Holy
Spirit to become more Christ-like.

Keeping Christ at the center of one’s life places the new-born Christian in an ideal position to grow up to
be like his Savior. The more a person takes direction from his teacher, the more like his teacher he will
become. Jesus told His disciples more than once “follow me.” For a Christian, the epitome of life is to
become like Christ…

Col. 2:9,10 “For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him,
which is the head of all principality and power.”

II Cor. 3:5 “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is
of God.”

II Cor. 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Gal. 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for
me.”

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