Miller Lite launched an advertising campaign in 1973 that introduced a new product to the beverage market: light beer. It had fewer calories and carbs, but would it taste as good? The television ads featured athletes and celebrities bantering about whether the new beer’s taste or caloric lightness made it so good. It became one of history’s most successful advertising campaigns, making “Great taste … Less filling” an iconic slogan.
Discipleship has become one of the buzzwords of many churches today, and it’s a good one. Although the word is not found in the Bible, it is the universal understanding of being trained — or disciplined — to be like someone. It’s not just knowing what they know but living in a way that reflects who they are at the core of their being (Luke 6:40).
Two thousand years ago, the Gospels referred to a group as the disciples. Jesus personally chose these disciples to lead the new movement He was starting. So if you’ve ever wondered what the finished product of someone disciplined by the best disciples ever is supposed to look like, check out the results. And when you do, you find their lives had been completely rearranged around God’s heart for the redemption and restoration of the world He loved. Discipleship not only changed their character and relationships: it changed their identity and purpose.
But too many today are settling for discipleship lite: something that tastes great but is far less filling. It has little to do with becoming like Jesus in His purpose and a lot to do with becoming like Him in being a better spouse, a better parent, better in the business world, better in finances, and better in planning for a successful future.
But finding an example of Jesus being good at any of these is a natural stretch. He never married, was never a parent, owned a business or held employment in the marketplace, owned virtually nothing, and was betrayed and executed at 31. You probably won’t find many standing in line to become like Him in these.
There’s only one example of Jesus’ followers being identified as looking like Him — the point of discipleship — when Peter and John were arrested for preaching the Gospel. So here’s how these two disciples, who had spent nearly three years with Jesus, concluded their defense:
“There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under Heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Ahh … I wonder where they ever got that idea! We then read this in the following verse:
“When they (their accusers) observed the confidence of Peter and John…they were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Being disciplined by Jesus had taught them, above anything else, that God loved the world and didn’t want a single person to perish. But, unfortunately, it altered their purpose and priorities and ultimately cost them their lives, like the one who’d trained them.
The first mention of a church discipleship class in the New Testament is in Acts 19. The new followers of Jesus met with the Apostle Paul every day in the city of Ephesus, and the outcome is recorded in verse 10: “This went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”
Any understanding of discipleship that misses this central focus can easily slip into being nothing more than spiritualized narcissism: the Jesus Way to a better, easier, and more comfortable life.
Don’t settle for discipleship lite. Instead, become like Jesus not only in His person but in His purpose. Let His heart for the world be the defining force that shapes your marriage, parenting, finances, work, and future.
If you do, you might be accused of looking like Him.