When you are on your death bed and have only a few hours left to impart things to your children, what will you share with them?
Whatever it is, I believe that you will want to tell them the things that are most important, like how much you love them, some principles on how to be successful, the values that they must uphold.
In the same way, in the last few moments that Jesus shared with His disciples here on earth, He shared what was most valuable -- the commission to make disciples.
Jesus commissioned in Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The call for us is to make disciples, but who are these disciples? Are we supposed to make disciples who will follow us?
The problem with so many discipleship ministries today is that we're making disciples of pastors, disciples of leaders, and disciples of celebrity ministers. God commanded us to make disciples who will follow Jesus, not other people.
Matthew 28:19 makes it clear that we are to teach them all that Jesus has commanded us, not what we have commanded others to do. Making disciples is not about turning people into our followers, teaching them to talk, preach, pray and take care of families the way we do, but about pointing them to the only perfect example of Christian living -- Jesus.
When we teach people to be our followers, we aren't only teaching them to do the good deeds we do but also to fail in the way we have failed. When we do this, we do not disciple Christians. We only turn them into moralistic and fake fans of ours.
How are we then to make sure that this doesn't happen? The key is always to point to Jesus Christ and to the Bible when teaching. Instead of giving our opinion and advice, we are to be faithful in giving and imparting only God's Word.
And the tricky part there is that we cannot be messengers of God's Word if we aren't servants and pupils of His word. That's why it's most important for leaders and disciple-makers to constantly be rooted in the word of God.
God isn't building a church that is founded on the skills and anointing of charismatic and smart leaders because even the most skilled pastor or teacher cannot come close to the only example that is worth emulating. Let us turn people into Jesus's disciples and not our disciples.
