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CONNIE: Would you abandon everything and follow a stranger who said he knew the way to heaven? Is that what you'd call reckless abandon, or is it just what it takes to become a true disciple? Giving God's trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I'm Lonnie Melashenko. Connie, you asked a pertinent question at the opening: One that's especially pertinent in our times when there are at any given moment dozens of would-be messiahs traveling the world, inviting people to follow them.

CONNIE: Recently in our area we've received prayer requests from a family that lives not far from our studios, whose son has disappeared and cut off all contact with them. He's joined one of those organizations that's headed by an autocratic leader who demands that his disciples give their total allegiance to him and break off all contact with the outside world.

LONNIE: I'm sure that must be heartbreaking for the parents--the young man was doing well in college, but then just abruptly left everything behind, and they haven't heard from him since.

CONNIE: But you know when you hear a story like that, there are some biblical parallels, aren't there? I mean, can't you just picture a man named Zebedee, father of James and John, sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in his little boat, watching his sons walk off into the sunset as it were--following an itinerant preacher named Jesus? How do you suppose that felt to the family members who were left behind?

LONNIE: Well, Connie, there are some parallels, I suppose. But there were some differences, too. Jesus didn't demand that His followers cut off all contact with their families--only that they be willing to follow Him. And something else--apparently the disciples were free to leave Jesus and return to their families anytime they chose. They were compelled to keep following only by their love of Him, and by the power they saw in His ministry.

CONNIE: Still, the challenge Jesus gave to His would-be disciples wasn't an easy one to take up, and in our program we're going to be looking at what it meant in Jesus' day, and what it means today. And now with a little commentary on the modern part of accepting that call we have David Smith and Ken Wade.

KEN: David, you and I were talking a little bit ago about leadership and followership, that the world is very interested in leaders, isn't it?

DAVID: I remember a line a preacher said. He said, "The world focuses on leadership, but what the Christian needs is followership. I guess that's not a word, but it ought to be, and it really ought to be a science for Christians. Followership, what does that mean?

KEN: Like discipleship.

DAVID: Exactly.

KEN: You know I remember my own experience as a pastor a few years back and how I felt like I was leading out in everything in the church. I heard a great story about a pastor in a church, and I really resonated with it. They said that he used to go down to the train station every morning. At four thirty in the morning he would be at the train station watching the train go by. And somebody said, "Why are you here at four thirty every morning watching the train go by"? He said, "Well, I just like to know that there is one thing that runs in this town without me pushing it".

DAVID: I'm doing a little pastoring myself and I can relate to that. But really can you know in the Christian discipline of disciplining learning to lead, and learning to follow isn't something that just the pastor does and the lay people follow him. We are all to be followers. We're all to be walking, following the Lord as He leads. And that is a tough thing to do. Somebody once observed, it's easy to follow a general when he goes to the officers club, or if he goes into town to get a deep-dish pizza from Little Caesars. But when he goes into battle and the bullets are flying over head and he says, "Now follow me." That's a whole different science. It really is.

KEN: Well, and that's very much the thing the disciples of Jesus experienced. When you think about it, it was great to follow Jesus when He was down by the Sea of Galilee where the crowds were thronging Him. Peter, James, John, and all of the other disciples gathered around Him, too, and they were celebrities.

DAVID: But then He would come to them one at a time, and say, "Now, just you follow me." And I'm sure they wanted to say, "Well, whom else have you got? Where's the rest of the crowd? I'll go if everybody else goes too."

KEN: Then, of course, you come to the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus invites the disciples to follow and three of the disciples to follow Him farther in, and He says, "Watch here and pray with me." You know, they're going into battle at this point…

DAVID: And Peter who had talked so boldly, "Oh Lord, I'll follow you anywhere". Now all of a sudden when it gets hard and the road is lonely he's not there.

KEN: Well, he was there. He was there with the sword at first, but when Jesus let him know that it wasn't a battle like that, but that He needed a spiritual strength to follow in a spiritual way, where was Peter?

DAVID: Well, you bring that to today, Ken. How do we follow? When it's hard, how do we follow? Somebody has observed that the great Christian hymn, you know, "I Will Follow Thee My Savior," that one. The last four verses all start with "though." Though the road be rough and thorny. Though I meet with tribulation. Though thou leadest me through affliction, yet my Lord I'll follow thee. That word "though" leads to hardness. How do we follow when it is difficult? How do we do more than just nod to Jesus then go our own way?

KEN: Well, the disciples had to spend a lot of time with Jesus on a one to one, or twelve to one, or whatever basis through the good days. They were with Him when He was healing everybody. They were with Him when He was preaching, and when there were accolades for everything that He did. From there they went down to Jerusalem and it wasn't quite as easy a road to hoe there. And they had a lot to learn in that experience. I suppose the thing that kept drawing them back to Him was the fact that, well, what Peter said. Jesus said, "Are you guys going to leave, too?" Peter said, "Where else would we go?" "Who else has the words of life?" So they had been there through the good times with Jesus. They had been absorbing the words of life from Jesus, and they were maybe addicted to Him in a way.

DAVID: And really when a general has won a few battles, you get to the point where you'll follow him into any battle. Maybe they got to that point finally.

KEN: With Peter though, of course, I'm always moved by the story in John 21. Peter has failed, he has beaten the hasty retreat and Jesus comes to him. What does Jesus question at that point? Not "Will you follow me," but "Do you love me?" Over and over puts it to him, "Peter how do you think you're going to follow me, if you don't love me?" And then that story works down to its climax where Peter has said, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." It works down to its climax, and Peter is kind of looking around, "What about that other guy over there?" Pointing to John.

: And Jesus says, "That's none of your business." "That's none of your concern." "You love me, you follow me, and that's the whole relationship." "You follow me."

KEN: And that comes right down into our time right now. It comes down to me today. I don't worry about you; I don't worry about my wife so much. Do I follow Jesus?

DAVID: That's exactly right, Ken.

CONNIE: It's true. Discipleship to Jesus has always meant the same thing--a willingness to follow and to learn, to set aside everything else for the task at hand, getting to know and trust the Savior, and the song "We Will Abandon it All" by Steven Curtis Chapman captures that spirit by looking at the lives of those who first followed Jesus.

CONNIE: For the sake of the call of Jesus--to be willing to leave everything else behind. It's a challenge He gives to all of us.

LONNIE: It's not a challenge to be taken lightly--in the lives of the disciples it meant some heavy duty changes, and it was just the beginning of a growing faith commitment to Jesus.

CONNIE: We all need to be growing in our faith every day, and that's the reason we here at Voice of Prophecy spend so much time encouraging people to get involved in studying the life and teachings of Jesus for themselves.

LONNIE: It's the reason we make the Discover Bible School available to everyone free of charge. These correspondence lessons are easy to read, and they focus on the teachings of Jesus.

CONNIE: We encourage you to enroll in the Discover Bible School--it's free, and the lessons come in the mail, or via the Internet. To learn more, call us at 1-800-872-0055, or write to us. I'll give our mailing address later, but right now, let's listen to Lonnie's message for today, "How to Be a Disciple."

How to Become a Disciple

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? And how do you become one?
In his classic book Disciples are Made--Not Born, Walter Henrichsen tells about a man who was part of the staff of the Christian organization known as The Navigators. This young man grew up in Jamaica, and began working for a banana producing company in Kingston.

One of the executives of that company noticed the energy and enthusiasm he put into his work, and one day called him into the office to talk about his future. After some discussion, the executive told the young man, " 'You have a great future with our company, with excellent prospects for rapid promotion. But we are looking for committed men. If you are going to be a success, I want you to know that you will have to give your life in exchange for bananas.' "

According to Henrichsen, "the young man thought about it for a few moments and decided that he could not sign away his life for bananas."

This young man, as a Christian, understood that bananas were too slippery a foundation to build a life on. He had already made a total commitment of his life to Jesus Christ. And he understood what Jesus meant when He said "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matt. 6:24 NIV).

The young man knew that when it came to choices, he had to consciously decide: Will I give my all to Jesus, or will I give it to bananas?
But how do you get to the point where you can make that choice--and come down on the side of Jesus. We're all faced with decisions like that day by day, perhaps not in the same life-changing way, but in little decisions--about whether we'll behave as a Christian in tough situations, or whether to just "go with the flow" and take the easy way out (or the way that means more money in our pockets).

Making the right choice isn't always easy.
Consider the lives of some of the disciples who followed Jesus while He was on earth.

If you read quickly through the gospels, it might seem like these men made sudden life-changing commitments to Jesus and never looked back.

But let's go a little deeper. Let's read between the lines and trace their paths a little more carefully to discover what these men went through, and how they finally arrived at the point where their lives were 100% committed to Jesus.
The first story we have in the Bible about people accepting the call to follow Jesus is found in John 1. You probably remember it. Here it is in verses 35-37
"Again, the next day, John [the Baptist] stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!' The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus" (NKJV).

That was Step 1. The two men simply started out walking. Leaving their past lives behind, they set out to follow Jesus. And it wasn't long until they had begun sharing their faith in Jesus. That was Step 2 in becoming disciples. One of them--Andrew--quickly went and found his brother Simon and invited him to follow Jesus too. And soon two more men had joined the disciple corps. The first five disciples were Andrew and John--the two who first followed Jesus, then Simon and Philip, and Nathanael whom Philip invited to follow Jesus.

That story from John's gospel happened right at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry--right after He returned to the Jordan River after spending six weeks in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. Now, as we piece together the story of Jesus' ministry from the various Gospel accounts, it's clear that those 5 disciples followed Him for quite a while--up to Galilee, and then back down to Judea where they worked with Jesus, baptizing people in the Jordan River.

But now, notice a story from the beginning of Mark's Gospel:

"Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.' And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon [that is--Peter] and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, 'Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' And immediately they left their nets and followed Him" (Mark 1:14-18 NKJV).

Wait a minute! I thought Andrew and Simon had already accepted Jesus' call and begun to follow Him. What are they doing back home fishing for fish? Hadn't they already learned to be "fishers of men?"

Well, we don't know the details of just what happened that took these men--and James and John as well--away from Jesus and back to their old profession, but obviously what we have here is a sort of recommitment service.

It's one thing to launch out into discipleship. It's quite another to stick with it through thick and thin. And apparently these men had abandoned their first commitment to Jesus and gone back to their old way of life.

But isn't it thrilling to realize that Jesus didn't just let them go and say "OK, have it your way then--I'll just go find some others who'll follow Me more faithfully." He went up to Galilee and actively sought out His erstwhile followers, and invited them back.

That's encouraging to me, and I hope it is to you too--especially if you feel like maybe you've wandered away from Jesus in some way. Don't feel like He's turned His back on you. He's still seeking you, calling you, asking you to come back and follow Him again!

And in the story of the disciples, they made that second commitment. They set out to follow Him again.

But notice now another story, from two chapters later in Mark's Gospel: And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach (3:13, 14 NKJV).

Here, for a third time, we find Jesus calling aside a group of people to be with Him--to be His special followers: His disciples. This is something different from being a casual follower of Jesus.

Jesus had been getting a lot of attention down in the valley around the Sea of Galilee. Crowds had been following Him around like groupies at a rock concert. People by the hundreds had been coming to Him for healing.
But now Jesus leaves the valley and climbs high up on one of the mountains beside the Sea, and calls a special few to Him and sets them apart for discipleship. And notice: It says "He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.

Step 3, but in taking His disciples there, Jesus took them back through Step 1 and Step 2 all over again: Come--follow Me. Be with Me. Then I'll (Step 2) send you out to preach to others.

Once again it was a renewal of discipleship. And it required commitment on a higher level: On a mountaintop level, I guess you could say. It required following Jesus up onto the mountain, and then agreeing to continue to follow Him wherever He went.

What does it take to be a disciple? Well, it takes a willingness to follow. A willingness to recognize when you've lost your way, and to recommit to following. It takes a desire to be with Jesus so strong that you'll climb mountains with Him.

But there's something more as well.

emember Simon Peter? He was there at each of these callings. At each one he committed himself to be with Jesus--to follow Him through thick and thin, through valleys and over mountains.

And He did--He followed Jesus right down to the end, and felt so confident in his commitment that on the night of Jesus' betrayal he boldly proclaimed " 'Even if all fall away, I will not.' " (Mark 14:29 NIV).

Well, we all know what happened to Peter's boldness--how he fell away and denied his Lord three times.

And that's why, after His resurrection, Jesus sat down with Peter and asked him three times, "Do you love me?"

You see, that was Step 4.

Willingness to follow is great--it's essential.

It's Step 1.
Going out and sharing the good news about Jesus is also essential.

It's Step 2.
Following Jesus even in the long climb of difficult paths is also a key part of discipleship. It's

Step 3.

But there's something more that Peter needed, and that you and I need, too.
Now Jesus appealed to Peter:

Take Step 4. Learn to really love Me. Love Me so much that nothing else matters in your life. Then you'll really know what it means to follow Me.

That's how you become a true 100% committed disciple.
O friend, do you love Jesus? Will you be His disciple today?