2 Questions: Part III

Thanks to everyone that took some time to read and respond to 2 Questions: Part I and 2 Questions: Part II. I've really enjoyed checking out what you had to say in response to those 2 questions. Certainly plenty to think about and hopefully continue to discuss.

My thoughts:

• The purpose of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus.
• A disciple, in its most generic form can be described as a student, pupil or follower who makes it his/her primary purpose to learn from and be like the one s/he is following or being taught by. With that being said, a disciple of Jesus is someone who makes following Jesus through thought, word and deed his/her focus.

Back in Jesus' day, not unlike today, it was possible to tell which leader a disciple was learning from based on the way the student acted and reacted, talked and thought. It's the idea of the student trying to be so much like the teacher that the student starts to take on the identity of the teacher. In our case that means that as we grow closer and closer to Jesus, people begin to see more of Him and less of us.

Discipleship is a process and a journey in our relationship with Jesus. This discipling relationship that Jesus invites us into is never stagnant so continually asking ourselves whether we are moving closer to or further away from Him is a great way to gauge where we are in the process of becoming a disciple of Jesus.