“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate.” Matt. 7:13, NLT

Who teaches you? Whose disciple are you? You are somebody’s disciple. You learned how to live from someone else. Contrary to contemporary Western thought, we are NOT our “own person”.

Who has discipled you over your lifetime?

One of the major transitions in life is to recognize who has taught us, mastered us, and then evaluate the results in us of their teaching.

The assumption of Jesus’ ministry is that people on earth would live their lives as His students and co-laborers. They would find Him so admirable in every respect, they would constantly seek to be in His presence and be guided, instructed, and helped by Him in every aspect of their lives.

Anyone who is not a continual student of Jesus, and who nevertheless reads the great promises of the Bible as if they were for him or her, is like someone trying to cash a check on another person’s account. At best, it succeeds only sporadically.

The effect of continuous study under Jesus is that we learn how to do everything we do “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17); that is, on His behalf or in His place… as if He were doing it Himself.

KEY: There is no good reason for not doing what He said to do! He only tells us to do what is best! Just try and picture yourself standing before Him and explaining why you did not do what He said was best. His gospel is a gospel for LIFE and DISCIPLESHIP.

Being WITH Jesus…Becoming His Disciple

If I am to be someone’s apprentice, there is one absolutely essential condition: I must be WITH that person. If I am Jesus’ disciple that means I am with Him to learn from Him how to be like Him. He has promised to be with us even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). His Spirit teaches us. Are we in that school?

That is the importance of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We are engulfed by His presence. It is the promise of His power when He is not visibly present with us. The power that is manifested is simply the assurance that the Father desires to continue working IN us. We cannot stop at just the outward manifestations. The reality of the Kingdom life is an inner reality.

The Kingdom of the heavens is still a reality. Jesus continually interacts with us in history and throughout the days, hours, and moments of our earthly existence.