The Nature of Discipleship

Many view the task of making disciples in the spirit of Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you?” Too often that discipleship is based on assumptions about things you should not think, feel, say, or do. The end result is that discipleship ends up taking on as ascetic quality that withdraws and separates from “the world.” I confess that I struggle with those tendencies, but I struggle with them more because they seem so antithetical to the spirit of Jesus. Most efforts toward developing disciples would probably fit better in the John the Baptist camp than in the daily discipleship walk with a Jesus who “saw the crowds [and] had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).