This week Ps Sean speaks about us being Disciples. This follows on in the series of Family Values for Family Church that began a few weeks back.  The word Disciple is used many times in the Bible, whereas the word Christian is barely mentioned. Disciple means learner or pupil but also to imitate the teacher – ie Jesus. We need to be disciples of Jesus and also disciple others in their Christian walk. 

The account of Jesus with His first disciples at Lake Gennesaret in Luke 5 is fascinating as it teaches us about the character of disciples. Several key points emerge………

Jesus interrupted the daily life of these fishermen in this account – they were washing their nets. We need to be prepared to allow Jesus now to interrupt our daily lives rather than be so preoccupied and busy with life we have no time for our saviour. 

Next, we need to learn to trust Jesus. The fishermen in Luke 5 had been fishing all day and caught nothing, yet were prepared to lower their nets again at Jesus' command. Proverbs 3:5 tells us “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”. We need to be able to live a life of faith in God rather than our designs. This is when miracles occur!

After the miracles of the catch Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ knees almost signifying he is useless. Likewise we also need to realise it is God who is the provider of all good things; our own abilities are comparatively limited. 

After the miracle of the catch the disciples left their boats and followed Jesus – what a challenge this is to us in our daily lives! We are not told exactly what happened yet but we know that the life of a disciple puts God first. We don’t need to leave our current lives and go and live in a monastery, but we do need to use our skills in the world in which we live in order to reach other people and make God at the centre of all we do.  Mark 16:15 says “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation”.

Many of us who have been saved for a while have knowledge and gifting we can use to help others. Our challenge is not to be just Sunday morning Christians but to be prepared to reach others, and disciple them  as we all grow in our walk with God.