Discipleship: Raising the Standard
Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 08:00AM 
Discipleship implies and presupposes that both a master and a clearly defined discipline exist. In order for a discipline to be engaged there must be a vision or a dream of what the followers of the discipline will accomplish in their lives.
Perhaps a further illustration will make this issue clear. Let’s suppose that a married couple decide to have a child. When the wife becomes pregnant she decides that she will stop smoking because of the potentially negative effect that it will have on the unborn child. The discipline that is required is only really possible because the pain of staying the same became greater than the pain of change. It is this principle that moves us to claim any discipline, it is the dream of some greater thing that the discipline will make available to us by being obedient to the vision.
Proverbs 16:26 tells us, “It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.”
The writer of Hebrews teaches powerful truths that will either disciple us or we can ignore and fail to reap the benefit of God’s Wisdom as revealed in it. As disciples we must ask ourselves, who will be our master, in other words, by what discipline will I live and thrive? The issue is one of whose leadership will I accept over my life.
Paul tells us in Philippians 3: 7& 8 that he counts all things that were important to him as unimportant “in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. Paul goes on to write that:
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear friends, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus is calling us up to heaven. (NLT)
Here we find Paul describing his striving to reach the end. Paul is revealing a principle of growth and development in that he tells us that we too must stretch and grow into greater responsibility. Paul also reminds us to not allow the past to define our future, but to inform our future. It is in this idea, of looking forward, that we find the standard that Paul makes later reference to.
The New American Standard Bible translates Philippians 3:16 in the following way: “...however let us keep living by that standard to which we have attained.” The standard of the discipled life is the life of Jesus Christ, but not only the life, it is the entire Christ event from birth through death and resurrection continuing into His resurrected Lordship. With Christ Jesus as the standard by which we live then the words that He spoke have new meaning for each disciple as we make progress in growth through the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says in John 12:32, “And when I am lifted up on the Cross, I will draw everyone to myself.” Here we find the standard of self-giving Love being raised as the standard of discipled relationships. It will be this act of love that we as disciples will hold up to the world as the model or standard of true redeeming, life giving love. It is the model of God giving His Life for a rebellious, hateful, bunch of children to save their lives that will draw men and women to Christ.
This love must manifest itself in the way that disciples love one another, because it is the standard of continuing discipleship. So if we are to raise a banner, a standard above our camp to clearly identify the rule and law of our community as all standards are raised to do. Let us make the empty cross the standard that we raise, representing the Love of God in the sinless life, death, resurrection and Lordship of Jesus the Christ.
