Mentoring Minutes

The Discipline of Love

1 John 4:19; Mark 12:29-31; Matthew 22:37-39

(Refer to last week’s post for the seven texts on Love – https://loveandlordship.com/blog/discipleship-loving-response-required-to-his-lordship/)

Foundation: I can only love because God first loved and still/always loves me (1 John 4:19)

From the moment that Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil sin entered the world and mankind has since been completely marred by it. This means that in and of ourselves, while there are remnants of our being created in God’s image that exist in us, we are incapable of real love, even loving our self. I know the world and all its messages through media, songs, social media, movies, etc., claims to know love and how to love but the reality is that in our flesh we don’t!  Sin has ruined our capacity to truly love.  But Love Himself (Christ) has restored it!

This is why it is so important to understand that with regard to love three things absolutely must happen…

1) I can only love because God, even in my sin, first loved us (1 John 4:19; John 3:16; 1 John 3:16);

2) Because of His great love for us, Christ has saved us by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) and we’re recreated as a new person in Christ and now, in Him, we can learn to love as we’ve been loved, and;

3) As new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), we can now be taught what love is and by faith through grace grow and mature in His Love.

This is the essence of discipleship…that I have been given love (John 15:13) and the capacity to love (John 13:34) so as a new creation in Christ I can grow by discipline in love! I know, I know…not romantic but the only way!

Jesus spent two of His three years of public ministry (and likely a few years prior to that) in building the relationships with those He would call as His disciples, teaching them the discipline of Love in Truth before He sent them out to teach and disciple others. And they still often missed it…still had much growth and maturity to learn.  We should take heed to how we are being discipled and how we are discipling others in His Truth, Love and Grace so we can better know Jesus and make Him known in this way!

Based on the foundation (1 John 4:19; John 3:16; 1 John 3:16), our first and utmost priority response according to the first and greatest command is what?  What do we do with His Love for us, in us and through us?

1) Learn and mature in worship of God alone (Mark 12:29)

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Early manuscripts of this would read, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God in one Lord.” This priority, first and greatest command (which we so often ignore or dismiss in our discipleship of ourselves and others) is Jesus simply repeating the great truth given to the Israelites as the most important commands before entering in to claim The Promised Land of Canaan (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

God told Moses to tell the Israelites that the following were of utmost importance…to worship Him alone and love Him with their whole being. He told them to teach and continually impress these truths more than anything else upon their children, grandchildren (and future generations) in every part of their lives! 

Every Jew would have known upon hearing this from Moses and Jesus that God is Lord, the Only Lord, and the Only One worthy of our worship and praise. Every Jew that took this to heart and every other Jew they would disciple…and every Gentile that was discipled and then discipled others would have been taught and known that they must start right here with the first and greatest of commands…or all others were unattainable.

How are we doing in discipling others to worship God and Him alone?  Only as we do so can we build on the second part of this first and greatest command out of our absolute and undivided worship of Him!

2) Learn and mature to love God with our whole being (Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:37-38)

First and foremost this part of the command must be seen from the perspective of Who God Is…being the Only One worthy of all our praise and worship, we are to strive, learn and grow in our love for Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

There is no part of us that should neglect or be held back from committing our all to Him (loving Him)! Remember from previous posts, love is not an emotion or feeling (it has good & bad emotions attached to it but they do not define love)…Love is a sacrificial, selfless, submissive giving of our self in commitment to another. Jesus is our perfect Example in His commitment to (love for) The Father, and then for us, in His obedient death on the Cross…to save us.

We need to take the time in being discipled and in discipling others to make sure we are obedient to God’s first and greatest command…worship Him alone and Love Him with all that we are. Then and only then can we begin to move into, and be obedient to, the second greatest command!

These commands were given so that we could grow in the capacity to Love as we followed them in line with His priorities.  I cannot love myself or others until my heart is set on, and I am learning to, worship God alone and love him with all my being.  Until I do so, any “love” for others will flow from my flesh and cause trouble for many as I’ve missed the grace given (Hebrews 12:15) to love as He commanded.  As we take seriously God’s Word, in our worship of, and love for Him, we begin to see that He is not only pleased with our love for Him but in the process (discipleship) He is showing us who we are re-created to be in Christ, and in so doing, how to love who we are in Christ. Remember, discipleship is maturation in loving relationships, not paralysis in our lack of perfection. Now I can…

3) Learn and mature in Godly love for myself so I can love sacrificially as Christ did and does (Mark 12:31b; Matthew 22:39)

This is not the self-centered false love of the world and pop psychology. It is rooted completely in the self-giving, sacrificial Love of God for us and subsequently in our love for Him (Foundation and First/Greatest Command). NOW we can begin to do in love what Christ did for us…give our self away for the sake of others so they can know Him and His Love as well.

In line with God’s Word, I can only love others to the extent that I love God and myself (again the self re-created in Christ). This is not loving the false self of the old person before Christ but knowing and loving the new person and true identity found in receiving Him as Savior and walking with Him as Lord…discipleship in loving relationship(s). Be obedient to love who God has made you to be in Christ (Psalm 139:14; Ephesians 2:10).

Lack of self-love in God’s design and commands is one of the greatest detriments to loving relationships, especially in marriages and families, extending into our churches. I understand why the world doesn’t get it but we must be different!  We need to disciple others in His kind of Love for us and for our selves if we are going to show the world His Love.

In so many cases in our churches today we assume that receiving Christ as Savior immediately and automatically makes us mature believers in Him as Lord. So much of the New Testament gives evidence that this is not the case in teachings to help us mature as His disciples in His Truth, Love and Grace so we can point others to Him.

As we take God seriously in His Word and commands we can…

4) Learn and mature in loving others as we love ourselves and as Christ loves us (Mark 12:31a; John 13:34)

Far too often in today’s world and churches so many try to love and serve others without having spent much or any time growing and knowing the first and greatest command…what it means to love God and then to love who they are in Christ. This is not in line with God’s Word.

These commands were not haphazardly written and God just placed worship and love for Himself first. He never does anything haphazardly so we must recognize and honor this Truth…until I’ve given my heart to fulfilling His first and greatest command, I can’t fulfill the Second.

We need to disciple new and young believers in what it looks like to spend time in God’s Word, in prayer, quiet listening and meditation so we can know Him, worship Him and love Him. As we do so He is faithful to prune, shape, purge, cleanse, mold, bless and favor us for His purposes as He can trust us because we know who we are in Christ!

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – Discipleship in loving relationships is not about perfection but about obedience (love) and maturation in faith. In so doing, we begin to show others the Love that He has shown us and we become confident and content in who we are because of Christ in us. Now we can love others as He has commanded and they will see a love that they desire…His Love in and through us!

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

  1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you how to love according to His commands and priorities.
  2. Ask Him to show you how He first loved you and how He loves you right now.
  3. Ask Him what you need to do to worship Him alone and Love Him with all you are. This is about setting your heart on Him and then growing in His Love and in your Love for Him.
  4. Ask Him to show you who you are in Christ and how to love this new person/identity found only in Christ.
  5. Ask Him how you have been trying to love others as a priority over loving Him and how He can show you how to truly love them.

Discipleship: Loving Response Required To His Lordship

This isn’t going to be easy so I begin with a reminder…I’m sharing the direct words of Jesus…I’m just the messenger. We must heed what our Lord says.

First let’s recap what He has called us to in order to be His disciples…

1) He must be the utmost priority in our life;

2) We must give ourselves wholeheartedly to Him;

3) We must give up everything for His sake, including our right to our life, our self and our right to be right (Luke 14:25-35).

That’s tough…but remember He’s The One who has given His all so that we can do the same. He is our Source and Strength (Philippians 4:13).

Why is this so important? Because we are His salt and light to the world. Salt and light changes everything they are exposed to…unless they have lost their ability to do so. Jesus said that if we are not completely sold out to Him then we have lost our saltiness (Luke 14:34-35). In other words, we’ve lost our influence to point those around us to Him.

Think about the glaring lack of influence that our churches and “converts” have in our culture today? Media mocks our faith, education ridicules it and government ignores and demeans it. Perhaps it is because we have failed to fully submit and surrender to Him as Lord and have lost our saltiness. The world around us has relegated our “salt” to the manure pile, which is exactly what Jesus said would happen.

Here are three scriptures that can help us pray and learn to be his sold-out disciples and be salt that once again influences the world around us:

1) “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.” Matthew 6:10 (Father, start with me and your will in my life)

2) “Seek first His Kingdom and righteousness.” Matthew 6:33

3) “Not my will but Yours be done.” Luke 22:42

Oswald Chambers gives more insight to how this is to be lived in contrast to the world around us… “Our Civilization and Christ’s Call” (Matthew 6:33 – see above)

“To follow Jesus Christ today is to follow a madman according to the ideals of present-day civilization. We have made a thousand and one necessities until our system of civilized life is as cast iron, and then we apologize to the Lord for not following Him. ‘God can never mean that I have to follow Him at the cost of all I have?’ But He does mean it. Instantly the clash is between our civilization and the call of Jesus Christ. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)–‘Seek first the kingdom of God’–and apply it to modern life and you will find its statements are either those of a madman or of God Incarnate.” (Parentheses mined and added)

I share this thought about discipleship and transition to…LOVE…because this doesn’t sound very loving?  Yet, God’s Word intricately ties discipleship and love together, “If you love me your will keep (obey) my commands.” John 14:15 (Parentheses mine and added)

Twee this:  “Discipleship is our love to Him in response to His Love for us!”

Remember that Discipleship is not about being perfect…we’re already made perfect in Christ but we have to grow in our understanding and maturity in Him while we still dwell in this fleshly temple (body). So discipleship, as we live it out, is about maturation in Truth and Love rather than perfection.

Ultimately discipleship under Christ’s Lordship is our response to His incredible, unfailing, sacrificial love for us. We respond as His disciples in loving Him (and others) ONLY because He first loved us (1 John 4:19)!

This is why Jesus could say what He did in Luke 14:25-35 because He knew that only those who received His grace and love…Redemption through His blood and body sacrificed on The Cross…could even do the things He asked that we focused on last week (www.loveandlordship.com for previous articles, videos and podcasts to see what it means for Him to be Lord and us to be His disciples…on His terms not ours)!

He does this because He knows that we can’t do this in and of ourselves but only by His grace, mercy and strength, as we trust in Him by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).

As we begin to unpack what His kind of Love truly is and how we are to respond in that Love let me ask one simple question that ties His Love and Lordship to our discipleship response…

Have you received Christ as Savior and known His Love and are you walking in that Love as His disciple? Asked another way…Is there room in your heart for Him to write His story in and through your life for others to read it and know Him as Savior and Lord? (2 Corinthians 3:3)

Truth in Love

We are created in God’s image so that everything that He has called and commanded us to do is to be done in loving relationship…with Him and with others. Christ has made this possible by the reality of Redemption for all who will believe.

However much of what we see and call love today in our culture and even in many churches is our version of it. We’ve stood at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right along with Adam and Eve, and fell for the enemy’s lie that we could be like god(s) (Genesis 3:4-5). So we’ve created Him in our image and redefined love based on our emotions (heart) and thoughts (mind) rather than the Truth of His Word.

His Word and His Son gave us very specific meaning and examples of Love that we’ll explore over the next few posts. I pray they will give you a new insight on what His Love truly is and how we are to live it out and can only do so as His disciples, living in His Lordship.

Here are 7 Great texts on Love in the New Testament that should guide us in how we are to love and disciple others to love as well. We will develop these in subsequent posts…

1) 1 John 4:7-21…God is Love and Love is from God…we can only love because He first loved us (v. 19); (John 3:16; 1 John 3:16)

2) Mark 12:29-31…A clear priority and order of love of God and others

3) John 13:1-17…Love lived out in humility, service, authority and discipleship

4) Romans 8:37-39…God’s unfailing and inseparable love for us

5) 1 Corinthians 13…Known as the Love Chapter describing what Godly love looks like to us and through us (emphasis vv. 4-8a)

6) Ephesians 5:21-33…Godly Love expressed in relationships and in particular in the Marriage Covenant and what it represents – Christ and His Bride, The Church.

7) Mark 1:40-42; 10:17-22…the full-orbed Love of God.

As we continue with this series, I’ll begin to dive deeper into each one of these to help us discover more of the absolute and needed connection between discipleship and Truth in Love!

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – God is Love.  It would do us a great deal of good to know what that Love looks like.  Be praying about what God will reveal to you as you study the texts in this post and desire to know His Love more fully and share it unconditionally. 

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

  1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you what you need to do to live in love as Christ’s disciple.
  2. Make a list of the areas where Christ Kingdom and will are first in your life.
  3. Make a list of the areas where Christ Kingdom and will take a back seat in your life.
  4. Give some thought to what the Scriptures on Love in this post say to you.

Discipleship: Walking According to His Truth

Here are some simple thoughts on discipleship from Jesus Himself (Luke 14:25-35)…

  1. Christ must be the absolute #1 Priority (Lord) in your life (vv. 26-27)
  2. We must commit and submit wholeheartedly, not half-heartedly (vv. 28-32)
  3. We must die to or give up our selfish desires and possessions (v. 33)
  4. If we follow through on the above we can be devoted disciples; if we do not we can’t be.

I said simple, not easy?  These can’t be done in our own strength…only by His Spirit!

These 3 specific choices must be made if we are to be disciples of Christ. According to Jesus Himself, if we are not doing these then we are not His disciples, i.e., He is not our Lord. We need to take this much more seriously than we do. It is not just about attending church, giving some money and serving a little…all good things but discipleship is much more (Luke 14:25-35)!

Let’s look at each of these more deeply and be honest with our selves about His Lordship and our discipleship in Him beginning with the first – Christ must be the absolute #1 Priority (Lord) in your life if you are to be His disciple (vv. 26-27).

The “hate” that Christ talks about in these verses is not a hatred of heart but a comparison of others when it comes to Him. Is there anything in your life that takes priority over Christ? Jesus didn’t talk of petty things (not in the sense of their potential impact on our lives but in their eternal value) like money, success, fame, sex, porn, drugs, etc. He spoke of those that were to be of significance to us because of relationships… spouse, mother, father, children, siblings, even our own life. We could even add friends…and dare I say, church?!?

Do any of these take priority over Christ in your life? If they do, He clearly says we can’t be His disciple – He is not our Lord.

Make Him first in all you do and He will take care of and bless those things that He desires for You and will order your life according to His Covenant and Kingdom. He will also remove those idols that don’t belong as only He can. Don’t let even those things His Word calls good take priority over Him! Take up your cross and follow after him above all else. This is for our sake, not His.  He knows this is the only way to have a fulfilled life. All the rest is fleeting.

Continuing with the focus on what it means to be Christ’s disciple if we are claiming Him as Lord (Luke 14:25-35) leads to His second point… our devotion to Him must be with all our heart. We can’t halfheartedly commit because our commitment is then based on our own selfish, fleshly terms, i.e., doing it our way (vv. 28-32).

Jesus uses two examples to teach us of the complete commitment required to be His disciple: 1) Finances and building a tower; 2) Fighting a battle.

In both cases He makes it very clear that anything but complete devotion to Him as Lord will be seen as unworthy. In the first case our work and our faith are declared both a failure and a mockery (does this ring a bell as to the world’s response to our “discipleship” today?). In the second story we are seen as unprepared for the battle, ultimately seeking a peace based on surrender (again anything familiar in how the world sees today’s Christians and Christianity?).

Hasn’t the world seen enough halfhearted devotion? We’ve become an afterthought and a laughingstock because we’re not sold out to Him! We can’t afford to let the world continue to see anything less than our all for Him.

After all, isn’t He just asking us to follow the example that He set in giving His all for us? Remember this is what is required in a relationship with Christ as Lord… but He never demands it. He wants us to do as He has done and give our all to Him!

I can’t do that on my own and it is His life, sacrificial death and resurrection that makes it possible as I commit wholeheartedly to Him as Lord and to walk as His disciple according to His standards. He has given me everything I need to do so. The question is will I fully surrender? He’s got great plans for those who do!

Oswald Chambers says, “If Jesus Christ cannot alter a man’s disposition, Christianity is a cunningly devised fable. Christianity means the manifestation of a strong family likeness to Jesus.”

When Christ is Lord of our lives it means that He is first priority in all things and we are wholeheartedly devoted to Him. He doesn’t speak this for His sake but for ours. He knows that anything that competes with Him will ultimately destroy our lives, relationships and efforts and lead to disaster. That’s why He states in Galatians 6:7-8 that sowing in the flesh always brings the fruit of destruction.

This brings us to the third point that Jesus makes in Luke 14:25-35…we must die to ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him, parting with any and every possession that claims us (vv. 27, 33). What does it mean to take up our cross? It means we must die right out of our natural selfish desires and longing for stuff. We choose Christ’s Truth and walk in it rather than seeking to satisfy our own feelings and pleasures. His results are much better (Galatians 6:8).

Jesus said that if anyone wants to come after Him they must deny self, take up their cross (His calling on their life) and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). Oswald Chambers gives great insight into what this looks like in his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest (Jan 24)… https://utmost.org/classic/the-overmastering-direction-classic/.

Discipleship is not for the faint of heart as we are certainly called to walk against the culture and swim upstream. So much of our modern-day churches have tried to do discipleship while fitting in with, and attracting, the culture but we’ve certainly lost our “saltiness” (Luke 14:34-35).

Jesus said that if we have anything that takes priority over Him, if we do not count the cost and make a wholehearted commitment to Him, and if we do not die to self and the things or possessions of this world, then we are not His disciples, i.e., He is not our Lord (Luke 14:25-35). If that’s the case and you’ve been led to believe that you’re in a relationship with Him as Savior only but He’s not Lord, then you’ve been misled.

Look at our culture and tell me that our churches and the “disciples” that make them up have retained their saltiness? We have lost it because we’ve been told He can be Savior but we can be lord. If this it not specifically taught it has been implied in what is taught and what is left out in today’s teachings.

We’ve lost our saltiness and it’s evident that the culture has tossed us to the dunghill (manure pile). Let’s wake up and be the men, women, disciples and Church that He died to save and be Lord of! He’s waiting to see if we will lovingly and willingly submit to Him as that’s the only way this works.

As we dive deeper there are three things to consider as to what our discipleship response to Christ as Lord looks like. All of these are Scriptural and have been modeled by Christ and yet are difficult in our flesh…so we must do so by His Spirit.

Oswald Chambers outlines these three things that must be given up by Christians in their walk with The Lord:

1) Give up your right to your life as you take up your cross and go to the death of your flesh and selfish desires (Galatians 2:20) – just as Christ willingly sacrificed and gave up His life for us, He calls us to do the same for Him. This may mean a literal physical death in our service to Him but each day that we live we are called to be a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) which means my life is surrendered to His will…to be lived for His purposes and His Glory.

Remember that just as John the Baptist was to prepare the way for The Lord, we are called to do the same in our lives and through our lives so others can see and know Him. In John 3:30, John the Baptist emphatically stated that it was not about him but totally about Jesus when he stated, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

As we learned earlier, Christ will never force us to decrease our own life and desires nor will He force the increase of Who He Is in us…we must willingly lay down our life (decrease) and choose the increase of His Word and Spirit, His Life, in and through us.

2) Give up your right to yourself…give yourself as a “living sacrifice” to God for His will (Luke 9:23; Romans 12:1)

The second right that we must give up is our right to ourselves… give yourself as a “living sacrifice” to God for His will (Luke 9:23; Romans 12:1-2).

Again we must remember that God is only asking what Christ modeled for us in loving obedience to His Father and we are called to do the same. As long as we are pursuing the things of self, we will never be fulfilled as we were created for so much more which can only be found in the Creator and not the creation (Romans 1:18-33).

Paul David Tripp says it this way in his devotional, New Morning Mercies, “Today your heart will search for satisfaction. Will you look for it in the creation or in relationship to the Creator?” He goes on to state, “There is one thing you must always remember as you take in creation’s multisensory display. Creation does not have the ability to satisfy your heart…Today you will give your life to something. Will it be the Creator, whose grace alone can satisfy and transform your heart, or the creation, which was designed to do neither?”

3) This may be the toughest because it is revealed in our thought life and practical daily choices…we must give up our right to be right…OUCH (John 10:17-18)

When I share this in conferences, retreats or events, two things quickly rise to the surface in comments and questions. The first is an overwhelming response that as Christians we are right and must stand for what is “right.” This mindset has fostered much of the legalism (Pharisaism) in our churches today.   We are right but we can fully trust God to defend His Truth and righteousness as we walk in them in Love?

The second is in response to the first in simply pointing others to our Lord’s example. Had Jesus demanded his right to be right, we would have no Savior…and no Lord because we would have no way to be in a relationship with Him. He was absolutely in the right in proclaiming who He was and that all authority belonged to Him and yet He willingly gave that up to the worldly authorities out of love, first for His Father in obedience to Him (Luke 22:42) and then His Love for us. In so doing, He perfectly fulfilled the very commands that He instructed us to follow (more on this next week, Lord willing).

However, had he insisted upon the fact that He was right and in the right, He would have never been crucified and you (and I) would never have been saved. He will be proven right and so will we but our walk as His disciples calls us to lay this down for the sake of others knowing His Truth and Love.

Think about these and how they impact us daily in our choices for self or for Christ.

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – He calls us to give up our rights to our life, to ourselves, and to worldly stuff…it is not for His sake but for ours. Don’t fall for the things of this world, give up your self for Him!

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

  1. Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you what you need to do, by His grace, to be Christ’s disciple.
  2. What relationships take priority over Christ?  Make a list.
  3. Determine areas where you are half-heartedly devoted to Christ – make a list.
  4. What possessions mean more to you than Christ?  Make a list.
  5. Ask The Holy Spirit to begin to show you how to make Christ first in every part of your life and be wholeheartedly sold out to Him.