What is a Disciple?

Like I said before, I decided to name this blog "A Disciple's Journey." This is partially a result of a profound realization that has rocked my spiritual world the past few days, which I am going to share here.

The word "disciple" in the Greek literally means "learner." It was used in Jesus' day to describe those who followed a rabbi, going with him every where that he went, learning from him, and emulating him. They were, in effect, full time students. They devoted their entire lives to the teaching and way of life of their rabbi. They wanted their lives to be transformed and shaped to be like that of their rabbi. Thus, to be a disciple of Jesus is to devote our entire lives to his teaching and way of life, immersing ourselves in Him. We are full time students of Jesus Christ, the ultimate rabbi, and this must come with a desire to be transformed to be like Him in every way.

Now here's the thing that gets me: If we are to devote ourselves to the teachings of Jesus, we must place ourselves in a position to be taught.

An example: As I'm currently in the midst of my college career, I know what it's like to be a student and a learner. In order to learn, I have to take several steps and do some hard work to gain the knowledge that I want to attain. I have to register for classes, pay tuition, buy books, show up for class, pay attention to the lecture, do the homework and reading assignments, study for the tests, etc. All of this to gain the knowledge that I desire. I need to do all of this to place myself in the ideal position to learn. The thing is that I can't learn just by doing nothing. The same applied to the disciples of the rabbi. They had to follow the rabbi around everywhere he went, absorbing his teaching and taking note of how he lived his life, all in order to learn from him and become like him.

So how do we apply this to learning and becoming like Jesus? By immersing ourselves in Him, by doing the things necessary to place ourselves in a position to be taught and transformed by Him. We can't just assume that if we sit around, eventually we will grow in spiritual maturity as we get older and wiser. Not much that's worth having in this life comes easy (no matter what Hollywood says). We have to work for it! We have to start with the desire to learn from God and be transformed by Him. For so long I've been living a lazy faith, assuming that I would grow and change over time. Now that I've realized all this, I want to really grow. I want to be transformed, and I want to be a true disciple.

What can I do as a Christian to place myself in a position to grow and be transformed? Resources for this have been given to us by God in the form of spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines is a term that so often automatically turns people off. It has a real negative connotation around it. But spiritual disciplines are not meant to restrict our lives, but to free us. As soon as I realized all of this a few days ago, I went to the library and checked out Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. I'm only a few chapters into it, but it has already had a profound impact on me, and I would recommend it to everyone. For the sake of length, I'm not going to go too much into the book in this post.

But for now, I'm overjoyed to find myself longing for God, and thirsting for the things of God. I feel like I'm finally on my way to becoming a disciple of Christ. Will you join me on this journey?