A few weeks ago I took part in the Easter Services (via the internet of course) and again it struck me that the purpose of the incarnation was to establish the Kingdom. The first thing Jesus did in inaugurating the Kingdom was to make disciples who would make other disciples.

From the beginning of the Gospels to the end, discipleship was in the DNA of the followers of Jesus. In the beginning Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”.

The story of the gospels was the outworking of these words right to the end where He said, “Now I’m going so you Make Disciples”.

As those disciples stood on the mountain top and saw Jesus go up into the sky, do you think they were thinking to themselves, “What do we do next?”  Of course not! Jesus had to reign them in. They wanted to go but Jesus said to wait. I don’t want you to do it by yourself. Wait for the Spirit. These people were part of the Kingdom and were ready and raring to go and make disciples. Disciple making is the natural (supernatural) overflow of being a disciple. Walking beside people while they discover the life of Christ is the overflow of the life of Christ in us.

So if we live in the kingdom of God, we are disciples who make disciples. That’s how the kingdom spreads. That’s what we do. The history of Christianity revolves around every disciple making disciples. This isn’t a ministry relegated to a few; it is the mission of every follower of Jesus. We are fishers of men. Every disciple of Jesus has the Spirit in them to guide them to those that God has prepared beforehand.

• Maybe one of the reasons why many people in the Church today are not making disciples is because they are not disciple themselves.

This may have something to do with how we introduce people to the Gospel today through what is called the sinner’s prayer. It goes something like this:

• Dear Jesus. I know I’m a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins. I ask you to come into my heart and save me. I’m now a child of God. Amen.

Should it concern us that there is no such prayer in the New Testament? ‘Accept Jesus into our hearts’ may be fundamental to modern evangelism but does it lead a person to believe something that is not biblical and stop them from finding the full picture of the gospel? Discipleship is not an invitation to pray a prayer; it is a summons for us to lose our lives for Christ.

With good intentions, with a desire to reach as many people as possible, we have taken the challenging words from Christ and turned them into trite phrases in the church. In the process, we have drained the life blood out of Christianity and replaced it with a watered down version of the gospel that’s so palatable it’s not even real. Culturally large numbers of people today call themselves christians but are biblically not disciples of Christ.

It has become about what we can gain for ourselves e.g. A secure future destiny, peace of mind about the lifestyle we live or the like. However, in the Kingdom of God, King Jesus is the Lord and the centre of all things and we are His loyal obedient subjects. It is all about “His Kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Is it possible that many people who sit in church, and have had a socially acceptable introduction to the Kingdom of God, will one day stand before Jesus and have him say to them “I never knew you.”

We need to be careful that our good intention to reach as many people as possible doesn’t lead us to introduce people to something that Jesus won’t recognise.