discipled living

A key concern of Discipleship and the Discipline we follow is achieving and maintaining integrity in our life and practice as followers of Jesus Christ.  Spiritual Integrity demands that we be what we say we profess to be. The relationship between what we claim about ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ must approximate our practice as believers or we become living lies, deceptions masquerading as true followers.  God relates this truth in Proverbs 11:3 “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity” (NIV)

Jesus Instructs in Matthew 5:33-37 in this way,

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Spiritual Integrity is a Discipline that produces a result in the disciple, but also offers benefits to the unbeliever.  Your exercise of spiritual integrity produces an inner strength that empowers the believer to stand against accusation and assault; confident in the knowledge that they are who they profess to be.  There is a ministry to the world in integrity among believers.  When believers behave in a manner that is consistent with their testimony about themselves, the Witness to Christ is strengthened in the world. 

As a spiritual discipline, Spiritual Integrity is a make or break proposition.  We are called to live before men that they may see our good works and glorify God in heaven. 

We do this by living as representatives of Christ. Our integrity is the only means by which we can demonstrate our kinship with Christ.  We are told, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  (Colossians 3:20 NIV.)  We are Christ’s representatives and the world will credit or discredit the Cause of Christ by virtue of the works that we do as His disciples.  We can claim that our failures do not impact the work of Christ but we can bring reproach against the “name of Christ” and thereby diminish the witness of the Saving Work of Christ in the lives of those we say we were saved and called to serve.

Should we fail the Spiritual Integrity test before the world, we in fact expose the Cross of Christ to public ridicule. The public spectacle disciples make of the Cross is a reverse of the Word of God which says,

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

We make the Word of God and the Work of Christ a public spectacle by living as though it has no authority over our lives.  What Paul is teaching us is that our “worth” will be measured by how we live out our lives as disciples.  This is not to say that God values any one more highly than another, for the scripture teaches that the Father is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11).  God loves His children equally, and showed His Love, by the sacrifice He made on our behalf.

Paul is giving voice and expression to an old saying that “Our word is our worth and our worth is our word.”  In the Hebrew mind, there was no distinction between word and deed; therefore to make a statement of commitment was as much the act, as the act itself

One of the great realities of life is that struggle is involved. The pathway to growth is always paved with struggle, challenge and hardship. We cannot avoid them, because they are the building blocks of successful and fulfilling growth as a person and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. People are made weak by one of two attitudes; unwillingness to begin the growth struggle, or the false belief that growth can occur without struggle.

No one has ever become physically strong until they willingly and purposefully pick up a weight, or engage in resistance training. In either instance the result of picking up some weights or resisting weights, is power and strength. The same is true of discipleship. We must pick up our cross daily and follow Christ, and we must resist the power of our carnal minds to build real spiritual strength.

Spiritual strength can not be developed in the laboratory of Bible Study, or the Sunday morning pew during preaching time. Spiritual strength is developed when you gain wisdom and knowledge through Bible Study and The Preached Word, and then practice them in your daily life and interaction with people and problems. It is the exercise of what you receive through preaching and teaching that makes them priceless and makes you powerful. God tells us in Hebrew 12:5-11,

5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:“ My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

We ought to revel in the honesty of God’s Word as He acknowledges through the writer of Hebrews that, “No Discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” We ought to take away from this a profound truth, that God’s desire is not to make you happy in the short term by providing a life of ease, without struggle. No God is more concerned with the life you will live that produces joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, the Fruit of the Spirit. The Father knows that the only way to achieve this life is through a life of discipline.

God says that those who are trained by discipline experience a harvest of righteousness and peace. The benefits of discipline and ultimately a discipled life are right living and the assurance that your life will be delivered safely to its appointed destination. We are made certain of our calling and election by the discipline we engage and by the product of that discipline in our lives.

We are instructed through Peter in 2 Peter 1:3-8 as God says,

“3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.