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Chapter 18          Being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ
     – the perfect way to worship your God.

Walk before me, and be thou perfect.
                Genesis 17:1

 

In the prophecy this book is based on, God said, “On the Day of Judgment, I will not accept any disciples into My Kingdom except the disciples of My Son Jesus Christ.” Faced with this unconditional statement by the Lord God Almighty, we should make sure we understand these two crucial things:
           [1] What is a “disciple?” and
           [2] Why is God so determined that only the disciples of Jesus will enter His Kingdom?

[1] A disciple is someone who chooses to follow another person, models himself or herself after that person, and eventually becomes re-formed into that person’s image. There is a word for this self-denying level of dedication – worship.

In our chapter on “Covenants”[03], we explained how God invites sinners to come into a covenant relationship with Him, escape this world of sin and death, and be restored to eternal life. Here is how God invited His first disciple, Abram (soon to be re-named Abraham), to enter in to this way of life:

When Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.

Genesis 17:1, 2

In this Scripture, the Hebrew word translated as “walk” is halak – it can mean anything from “take a stroll” to “travel the long road through life.” When used with the phrase “before Me” (or “before” anyone else), halak means, “to live your entire life under the watchful eye of a leader, learn that leader’s values, and follow that leader’s examples.” The word translated as “perfect” is tamiym – it means “perfect; complete; without blemish; upright; undefiled.” When God called Abram to “walk before Me,” He was declaring His desire to be Abram’s exclusive leader. And when God called Abram to “be perfect,” He meant “perfect according to My holy standards.”

God’s call to “walk before Me” is active. Since we all have the God-given right to choose the way in which we will walk through life, God calls us to take a positive action – He wants us to choose to walk before Him. But God’s call to “be thou perfect” is passive. It is His invitation for us to become perfect. In this world of sin, no one can make himself or herself perfect according to God’s standards – but, when we walk faithfully before a perfect God, He is faithful to conform us to His perfect image. (Just as Satan or Osama bin Laden will conform us to their corrupt image if we are foolish enough to walk before them). When God goes on to tell Abram, “I will make My covenant between Me and thee,” He is actually telling everyone who chooses to walk before Him, “Every step of your new walk in life will be a glorious step of covenant faith.”

It’s been four thousand years since God called Abram to enter this covenant relationship with Him – but God does not change over the millennia, and neither do His hopes for us. In the day of space stations as in the days of camel caravans, God still calls “whosoever will” to be His disciples – to walk before Him, and to be made perfect in His sight.

What is a “disciple?” A disciple is a worshiper. All of us must worship – that’s how God made us[01] – and all of us have the freedom to choose whether we will worship some political or social or intellectual or religious leader ... or the living God.

[2] God will accept only the disciples of His Son Jesus into His eternal Kingdom – because anyone who worships someone or something other than God is an idolater. God makes this clear beyond question in the first of His Ten Commandments:

I AM the LORD thy God, who has brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

Exodus 20:2,3

We can still choose who (or how) we shall worship; but God also has the right to choose which worship He will accept and which He will reject – and, in these Last Days, God has chosen to be worshiped only through His Son Jesus. There is no other way. Jesus made this clear beyond argument when He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” The Apostle Peter told the religious authorities of his day, “Neither is there salvation in any other [Person except Jesus]: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (9Acts 4:12) And the anonymous writer of the letter to the first-century Hebrew Christians put the matter in these chilling, Old Testament terms:

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?

Hebrews 2:1-3a

The madmen who destroyed the World Trade Center towers were disciples – not of Jesus, but of the terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden. God is surely not going to accept those disciples into His Kingdom. But you don’t have to kill thousands of innocent people with a hijacked airliner to shut yourself out of God’s Kingdom of Love. All you have to do is neglect Jesus, and you will fall into a fatal relationship with a worldly leader whose doctrines (and whose disciples!) can never be accepted by a holy God.

Romans 3:23 tells us, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” – and all of the sinners who make disciples for themselves pass their sin on to their disciples. Only Jesus had no sin in His life. Only Jesus walked perfectly before His Father in this sinful world. Only Jesus fulfilled the perfect Law of God, and only Jesus walked cradle-to-grave in the perfect Love of God. Only Jesus took all of our sin upon Himself on the Cross, allowed His Father to punish Him for it, and made it possible for His Father to forgive us from it. That is why only Jesus can disciple us in the way that leads to Godly perfection. And that is why, on the Day of Judgment, God will not accept any disciples into His perfect Kingdom except the disciples of His Son Jesus.

Discipleship is always personal – and always intimate. Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:18, “I will [personally!] build My church.” Jesus fully intends to have a personal relationship with everyone in His Church – and anyone who claims to be in His Church will be judged by the quality of his or her relationship (or lack of relationship) with Him. Here is the sobering – actually, the terrifying – warning that Jesus gives to anyone who may be thinking of “taking Him for all He’s got” without giving Him what He and His Father demand in return – intimate love:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but [only] he that doeth the will of my Father (to walk before Him and become perfect) which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Matthew 7:21-23

Jesus told those people who dared to call Him “Lord,” “I never knew you,” “I never knew you, because you never chose to have an intimate relationship with Me.” In this Scripture, Jesus was talking to people who said they had “prophesied, cast out devils, and done wonderful works in His Name” – and that is why He told them, “Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” Iniquity! – sin! – because they had deliberately and repeatedly violated the Third Commandment:“Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.”  In vain – for no Godly purpose! – because they dared to call down the power of God without having any love for God, and God IS love!

There is a word for people who claim to believe in God but have little or no love for God – liars. We might expect the Apostle Paul, who began his career as a religious terrorist, to use this word “liar” – or perhaps the Apostle Peter, who was a tough-as-they-come fisherman – but no; it is the “Apostle of Love,” the Apostle John, who tells us:

He that saith, I know [Jesus], and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

 1st John 2:4-6

John uses the word “liar” to describe people who claim to know Jesus but do not keep His commandments. Every one of His commandments? Yes – every last one. But how? Many people haven’t learned all of His commandments – some don’t even have access to a Bible. How can we hope to keep a commandment we haven’t even heard about! Jesus tells us:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Deuteronomy 6:5) This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou  shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Leviticus 19:18) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22:37b-40 

That is the life-or-death difference – love! Our love – or lack of love – will show the world whether or not we know Jesus. The Apostle John spells it out beyond any possibility of confusion:

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1st John 4:7,8

When we walk in love, we will keep every commandment in “the law and the prophets” (a Jewish term for the Old Testament, which contains all the commandments Jesus ever taught). We will keep them automatically – because “all the law and the prophets” is hung upon those two primary commandments: love God; love people. But if we do not keep those commandments – if we are content to lovelessly say, “I believe in God” as we walk through life – then we will hear Jesus say in the Day of Judgment, “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”

The Bible says in James 2:19, “Thou believe that there is one God; thou doest well (you believe correctly): [but] the demons also believe, and tremble.”  Those demons should tremble – because they hate God, and they know God will judge them by the hate in their hearts. But what about people who say they “believe in Jesus” but have no love for Jesus? Can they really “believe” in Him when they deny, in their hearts and by the way they live, who He is. And, if they take His Name in vain – if they call Jesus “Lord!” but have no love for Him – shouldn’t they tremble every bit as much as those demons who have nothing but the wrath of God to look forward to?