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    Overcoming and living the Gospel Life according to the commandments of Yahweh


      Prerequisites for Discipleship

    A disciple is a student, a pupil, a learner, one who is studying the teachings of a teacher. The word disciple is related to the word discipline. In an academic context, the word discipline refers to a field of study. Students (disciples) study the discipline of mathematics, or the discipline of biology, or the discipline of music, etc. If someone goes to a college to study one of the disciplines, the potential student consults the school's catalog of courses. This catalog gives a description of all the courses that the university offers. Included in each course description is information about prerequisites. A prerequisite is something that is required before the course can be taken by the student. For example, before a student can enroll in a course for third-semester advanced chemistry, he usually has to have taken and passed the first and second semesters of beginning chemistry. A prerequisite for a course in painting might be two semesters of drawing. When I took a course to study Aramaic, the prerequisite was proficiency in Hebrew.

    Prerequisites are not mere recommendations; they are required before the student can enroll in the class. Our Teacher is Yeshua. If a person wants to be His student, there are prerequisites. There are certain conditions which must be met before a person is even qualified to study His teachings. These prerequisites are not optional; they are required. Our Teacher declared certain prerequisites for those who would be His students:

    "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple ... So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26f,33).

    These are prerequisites to being a disiciple of Yeshua. Some people think to themselves, "I'll study His teachings, and that will make me into His disciple." If you think that way, you've got it backwards. Before you are even qualified to study His teachings, you've got to first take care of the prerequisites. Otherwise, you cannot be His disciple. Please notice that He did not say that these prerequisites are just for apostles or super-disciples. He did not say that these prerequisites are only required if you want to be a first-class disciple, but you can ignore them and be a second- or third-class disciple. If you do not meet the prerequisites, He said, you cannot be His disciple. You can try to be His student or pretend to be His student, but as far as He is concerned, you cannot be His student without the prerequisites. It is impossible. The prerequisites are necessary before you even start out on the road to discipleship.

    If a student at a university somehow manages to enroll in a class without having met the prerequisites for that class, do you know what happens? The student feels lost and confused and frustrated because he cannot understand the teacher or the textbook. He feels stressed and afraid because he realizes he is in way over his head. And he's almost certainly going to fail the course. There are great multitudes today who are trying to follow the Teacher without first having met the prerequisites for being His student. As a result, they feel lost and confused and frustrated because they cannot understand the Teacher or His Textbook. They feel stressed and afraid because they realize they are in way over their heads. And they're probably going to fail at being His disciple, because they have ignored the prerequisites.

    Before Yeshua stated these prerequisites, the Scripture says this: "And there went great multitudes with Him: and He turned and said unto them..." Notice to whom the prerequisites were stated: not just to an inner circle of twelve or seventy, but to the "great multitudes" who went with Him. Today once again, there go great multitudes with Him. Today once again, these great multitudes need to hear Him state the prerequisites for being His disciple. Let's consider the prerequisites.

    PREREQUISITE #1: "HATING" YOUR FAMILY

    We are supposed to love our family members, so the requirement to "hate" them is obviously meant to be understood in a comparative sense. It does not mean that we should have feelings of animosity toward them and wish they were dead. It simply means that our love and commitment to our Master should be so very great that our love and commitment to our family looks like "hatred" by comparison.

    Here's a story I often share to illustrate this concept. Several years ago I was driving on the interstate at 55 MPH in the right-hand lane. A big truck started passing us on the left. As our 4-year-old daughter Betsy watched the speeding truck come alongside us and fill up the entire view of her side window, she said, "We goin' back'erds." Even though I was going forward at 55 MPH, the high speed of the big truck made her feel like we were moving backwards. Because she was so focused on the fast-moving truck, she felt like we were moving in the opposite direction. In a similar way, even though we love our family members very much, they might sometimes feel "hated" because we are so focused on the Lord and so deeply devoted to Him.

    Family members are to be loved, but if you have to choose between pleasing them and pleasing the Lord, that's when you must "hate" them. Pleasing the Master must be your first priority. If your obedience to the Lord causes your family members to feel offended, or insulted, or hurt, or even hated, that is the cost you must pay to be His disciple. If you do not love the Lord deeply enough to "hate" your family, then you cannot be His disciple.

    PREREQUISITE #2: "HATING" YOUR OWN LIFE ALSO

    The same things about "hating" one's family members likewise apply to "hating" one's own life also. The Lord does not want us to be so sad ind miserable and lonely that we wish were dead. On the contrary, He wants us to be happy and to "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Pet. 1:8). But we are required to "hate" our own life when our own life psuche, literally "soul") interferes with our doing the will of God.

    Each soul has its own unique, individual traits. We each have our own personal likes and dislikes, our own inclinations toward or away from certain things. We each have our own personal preferences in nearly every area of life when different choices are available - choices in regard to career, lifestyle, friends, music styles, where to live, where to fellowship, styles of praise and worship, etc.

    Having personal preferences for certain things is not inherently wrong or evil (provided that the things we desire are not forbidden by Scripture, of course). But our personal preferences must be totally yielded to the Lordship of our Teacher, because sometimes our personal preferences interfere with His plans for us. For example, you may want to be a school teacher in Tennessee, but He might want you to be a Messianic missionary in Mexico. Or you might want to be a pastor in Poland, but He might want you to be a Messianic mechanic in Michigan.

    If we are walking close to the Teacher, our inclinations will usually match His calling for us. If they do not, then He will gradually transform our inclinations if we are totally yielded to His will. If we realize that our natural inclinations, our own personal preferences, are contrary to His plan for us, then we must "hate" our own life. In these situations, you must deny your own personal preference. If you do not "hate" your own soul enough to do this, then you cannot be His disciple.

    PREREQUISITE #3: BEARING YOUR CROSS

    Bearing your cross does not mean wearing a cross around your neck as a piece of jewelry. Nor does it mean dragging a big wooden cross in public to attract attention. Some brothers have done this and found it to be a fruitful tool for evangelizing, but it is not this sort of literal cross-bearing which is a prerequisite for being a disiciple. The cross-bearing which is a prerequisite for being a disciple is an internal death to one's own selfish desires. It is a conscious, voluntary choice to die to your own will in order to do the will of God.

    Luke 9:23 adds the word "daily": "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." The Apostle Paul said, "I die daily" (1 Cor. 15:31). Bearing the cross is a daily, life-long requirement for those who wish to be disciples. Sometimes the cross gets very heavy and very difficult to bear.

    Other times it is lighter, when the Lord sends a Simon of Gyrene to help us bear it, when we cannot bear it alone. Those who are willing to bear the weight of the cross also experience the power of resurrection and are able to walk in newness of life. They are "crucified with Christ," nevertheless they live, because the resurrected Lord lives in them (Gal. 2:20). This blessing comes only to those who have laid hold of the cross and made a conscious decision to voluntarily bear it every day for the rest of their lives. If you have not yet done this, then you cannot be His disciple.



    PREREQUISITE #4: COMING AFTER HIM

    To "come after" somebody means to actively pursue him. If the police are "coming after" a criminal, they are actively pursuing him. They are on the move, headed toward the criminal. They are not just going to go part of the way, then stop and give up because they are tired or bored or scared. They are determined to continue their pursuit until they apprehend the man whom they are coming after.

    Before we can be Yeshua's disciple, we must come after Him. We must actively pursue Him with a determination to continue our pursuit until we have apprehended Him and owned Him as our Lord and Savior. Even then, our pursuit of Him continues as we seek a closer walk with Him through prayer. King David, who had a very close walk with the Lord, spoke often in the Psalms about seeking the Lord. Even though David had in one sense "found" the Lord in his youth, yet he still continued to "seek" the Lord throughout his whole life.

    If you want to be Yeshua's disciple, you must actively seek Him. I cannot monitor your personal prayer life or legislate how many hours per week you should spend seeking the Lord in prayer. But I can tell you that if you are not coming after Yeshua, if you are not consciously, actively pursuing Him with the intention of continuing this pursuit for the rest of your life, then you cannot be His disciple.

    PREREQUISITE #5: FORSAKING ALL THAT YOU HAVE

    "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." To forsake means to abandon. "All that you have" means all that you have. Some translations state it in its more literal sense, "all of his own possessions." If you do not do this, Yeshua said, you cannot be His disciple. Forsaking all of your possessions is not optional; it is a prerequisite if you wish to be His student. You are not even qualified to study His teachings until after you have done this.

    This is one of the "hard sayings" of Yeshua. How can a man forsake every last possession that he has? To do so in an absolute literal sense would require a man to go forth naked and barefoot with nothing in his hand, not even a Bible nor a toothbrush. Obviously the Lord does not want His disciples to go about that way. In the Sermon on the Mount, He spoke about trusting the Father for food and raiment. If He wants us to have food, then it is safe to assume that He is not opposed to our possessing dishes and a kitchen and utensils for the preparation and eating of the food. If He wants us to be clothed and sheltered from the elements, then it is safe to assume that He is not opposed to our having a house. If He expects us to show hospitality, then it is safe to assume that He is not opposed to our having some furnishings in our house. So what did He mean when He said that forsaking all of one's own possessions is a prerequisite to being His disciple? How can a person forsake all that he has?

    Some believers do literally forsake all - or very nearly all - to be His disciples. Christians who go to remote, uncivilized places to be missionaries must leave behind all but a few bare essentials. Other Christians join communes and forsake all of their own possessions by having "all things common," so that there is no such thing as private ownership. (Although private ownership is never totally eliminated, not even in the strictest communes - unless there are communes where even the combs and toothbrushes are held as common property and shared by everyone.)

    Not everyone is called to go to a remote, uncivilized place as a missionary, and not everyone is called to join a community where everybody lives under one roof and has one common purse. If you are not a foreign missionary or a Christian communist, how do you forsake all? You do it by living with a profound understanding and a constant awareness that you are not the true owner of your possessions. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein" (Ps. 24:1).

    God is the true Owner of everything you have. You are just a steward of His possessions that He has put into your hands. So if He tells you by His Holy Spirit, "Give that item away," you give it away. If He tells you to sell something, or fix it, or change it, or throw it away, you do as He says.

    In order to have the right attitude toward material possessions, it helps me to think like a teenager. Let me explain. When I was 17, there were five teenagers in our home. (We were a "Brady Bunch" family. My mother, a widow with three children, married a widower with three children.) That summer our parents went on vacation and left us five teenagers in charge of the house. (Parents please note: This is not a good idea!) While our folks were away, we had access to the entire house, to the car, and to the money they left with us. There was no adult there to supervise us. However, we knew that we were not the real, permanent owners of the house, the car, and the money. We knew that we were just temporary stewards, and that we would give an account when our parents returned at the end of the week.

    Disciples of Yeshua must likewise live as stewards who know that they will give an account when the Lord returns at the end of the age. We are stewards of all the possessions which the Father allows us to use in this life. If you are not truly living as a steward in regard to your possessions, if you still think of them as your own possessions, then you cannot be Yeshua's disciple.

    COUNTING THE COST Between Prerequisite #4 (Coming After Him) and Prerequisite #5 (For-saking All), Yeshua spoke two parables about the importance of counting the cost. The first parable was about a man who started building a tower without first counting the cost. When he ran out of materials and money, people mocked him for his unfinished tower. The second parable was about a king who realized that his army was outnumbered two-to-one by the army of an enemy king. After counting the cost, the king made peace, not war, with the other king.

    People who are interested in being a disciple of Yeshua need to count the cost. They need to be aware of what they are getting themselves into, namely, a life-long, whole-hearted commitment to follow the Lord and to do whatever He says to do. Once discipleship is entered into, there is no turning back - not to please family, not to please self, not to avoid the cross, not to seek other things, not for material possessions - not unless you want to be mocked for your folly like the man with the unfinished tower.

    Like the king who was greatly outnumbered, people need to realize that they are greatly outnumbered by the army of the Lord of Hosts. Their only hope is to desire conditions of peace, like the king in the parable. And the only way to make peace with the King of kings is unconditional surrender on your part. Then you will be ready to take care of those prerequisites and start on the road to discipleship.

    (Courtesy of Daniel Botkin)



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    This page was created on 28 May 2010
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