The Great Commission is one of the last sermons that Jesus would preach to His disciples before ascending to heaven. You might even be familiar with His words in Matthew 28:19-20:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. Sounds like a lot of responsibility just for eleven guys, right?
However, Jesus wasn’t just giving a command for those eleven men that stood on the mountain with Him that day in Galilee. Those disciples would become His “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), but our call as Christ-followers remains the same as theirs. We are to make disciples.
But what does it mean to make disciples? Do we have to be qualified to disciple someone? Are there only certain points in our life when discipleship applies to us? Let’s break those questions down.
What does it mean to make disciples?
As a rabbi, Jesus chose His disciples to follow Him—literally. They learned up close and firsthand all about Jesus Himself—how He taught, how He spoke with people, how He ministered, how He performed miracles, and more. They weren’t just people who stood back from a distance and watched. The disciples had hands-on experience where they were in a real relationship with the One who called them.
Jesus displayed the perfect example of discipleship for us to follow. Like Jesus, we’re to invite people into our lives for them to see up close and personal what it means to follow Him. This begins with the gospel, which leads to baptism, then comes down to teaching them everything we find in Scripture.
Jesus didn’t do this by having His disciples sit in a circle once a week to open the Law and have discussion questions. No, Jesus taught His disciples through the way He lived. Yes, there were many sermons. But Jesus didn’t just teach about prayer; He showed them what prayer looked like. He didn’t just talk about how to care for their neighbors; He showed them what it looked like to serve others. He didn’t just preach about giving; He showed them what it looked like to sacrifice His life.
Discipleship is our call to bring people alongside us to not just teach them what it means to follow Jesus but to show them.
What are the qualifications for discipleship?
If you do a deep dive into the life and background of the eleven disciples, you will know that Jesus didn’t choose them because they were super qualified. These men weren’t the smartest, most behaved, or perfectly religious. They would misunderstand Jesus, deny Him, and be rebuked by Him. Yet Jesus chose these imperfect men to learn firsthand what it means to follow Him.
In Matthew 16:24-26, Jesus gave the most basic qualification on what it would mean to follow Him and be like Him.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.’”
Do you want to make disciples? Take up your cross and follow Him.
Do you want to make disciples? Deny yourself.
Do you want to make disciples? Find your life in Him.
Those are the only qualifications of what it means to start making disciples. Now ask yourself, what is holding you back from getting started?
When is discipleship effective?
At the beginning of Jesus’s command in Matthew 28:19, He said, “Go.” According to Blue Letter Bible, that word can be defined as “to pursue the journey on which one has entered, to continue on one’s journey.”1 It does not say to make disciples when you’ve finally mastered theology or have your kids out of the house or when you are less busy at work. It means wherever life has you and whatever season you find yourself in, you can make disciples.
It’s hard to imagine adding anything else to our plates, but that’s when we need to remember that discipleship has nothing to do with our ability but everything to do with the power of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus told the disciples they would be His witnesses in Acts 1:8, Jesus said it will be because they will have the power of the Holy Spirit. The same goes for us.
We can’t change anyone’s heart or even disciple someone apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what our lives or seasons look like. We can always be effective disciple-makers because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us.
This should be such an encouragement to us! We don’t need to find the “best way” to do it or get our lives together before making disciples. Effective discipleship is our full reliance on the Holy Spirit and complete surrender to the truth that Jesus is with us always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20).
Amanda Mejias serves as the Lifeway Girls Brand Specialist, and she is passionate about equipping church leaders as they minister to and disciple teen girls. Amanda feels like she is living a dream, especially with her husband and their daughter at her side. She is also always down to hear a cheesy joke, grab coffee, and talk about golden retrievers. Amanda holds her master’s degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity.
Work Cited
1. Strong’s G4198, “poreuō,” Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4197/csb/tr/0-1/.
