What Does It Take To Be A Disciple Of Jesus?

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

The short answer to the above question is, “It takes all of you!” This is probably the reason why our Lord Jesus often times cooled off the enthusiasm of potential candidates for discipleship by urging them to consider its costs (Matthew 19:16-22, Luke 9:57-62).”  

If one truly desires to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is imperative that he/she first heeds the words of our Lord and counts the cost of discipleship. A church that does not teach the principles of discipleship is doomed to lose her spiritual influence in society and to become a spiritual nursery filled with immature Christians.

Jesus Christ took time and clearly explained to His disciples what it takes to become one of His disciples. To be a disciple of our Lord demands that Jesus becomes the most important thing in your life.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must be a new spiritual creature and a citizen of God’s Kingdom. 

The first condition of discipleship is that one has already become the recipient of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is no discipleship without salvation. Jesus metaphorically explained this: “No one sews a patch of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.

Neither do men pour new wine into old wine skins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine-skins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16-17). Without the miracle of the new birth, no one can completely devote him/herself to Christ.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must daily crucify his/her own self. 

Informing His disciples about the events leading Him to the Cross, Jesus emphatically told them that every true disciple must also bear a cross. “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

Taking up our Cross daily describes our willingness to lay aside all self-seeking and ego-centric ambitions: It means that our utmost desire and ambition is not to satisfy ourselves, but to please our Savior and Lord. It means that Jesus, not ourselves or anyone else in this universe is the object of our supreme worship and affection.

Pleasing Him is the driving motivation of our lives, of our activities, and of our choices. Jesus didn’t mince words: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).

The disciple of Jesus Christ must pursue the teachings of the Kingdom of God as taught by Christ. 

By definition, a disciple is a student and a follower of his master. A disciple of Christ must strive to learn, understand and apply the principles of the Kingdom.

We can only live according to what we know: the more we know Christ’s teaching and character, the more we can emulate His lifestyle and character. Philippians 2:5 exhorts us to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

A disciple is called to embrace the mind, the attitudes, the purposes and the destiny of his/her Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must place Jesus above those dearest to him/her. 

The fourth requirement Jesus underscored is that our love for Him must have priority over any other human being: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

This verse doesn’t mean that we, as disciples of Christ, cannot love God and our family at the same time. The Bible clearly teaches our obligations to our husbands, wives and children (see Ephesians 5:22-25; 1 Timothy 4:8). What Jesus means is that our love for Him must have primacy over any other affection and our bond to Him more inseparable than to anything else.

Our relationship to Christ must have priority not only over family members; our union with Him must take priority over all forms of human relationship. Being a true disciple of Jesus Christ will often times lead to enmity with the surrounding world.

Jesus did not hide this reality: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

The disciple of Jesus Christ must place his/her devotion to Christ above material possessions. 

After Jesus taught about the true riches, He declared, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

Rich and affluent people of the world clearly have a problem with this condition of discipleship, but so do most of us that are the citizens of the most affluent nation in the world, The United States of America, especially when Jesus adds, “So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions”(Luke 14:33).

This simply means Christ’s disciples must love God more than they love money and what it can buy. However, this doesn’t mean that the Bible teaches that one can become a Christian only after disposing of all his or her material possessions; most likely it refers to the attitude towards material possessions:

“Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:24). Paul explains: “The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Timothy 6:10).

He continued to instruct those who were rich in material things to be rich in good works, and not to trust in the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6:17-19). In the life of a disciple of Christ nothing must compete with his/her devotion to and dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

A disciple of Jesus Christ must be fruitful and multiply him/herself. 

Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24-25).

Like our Master, who died and through His resurrection reproduced His life in us, we also must reproduce ourselves in others and produce disciples of Christ. This is the heart of the Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Only a disciple who died to himself and to this world is capacitated to reproduce himself in others!

What does it take to be a disciple of Lord Jesus Christ? 

A “disciple of Christ” is someone who has been called first to intimately know Christ and His salvation, then to daily pick up his cross and follow Him by placing his devotion to Christ above any other human, above any material possession, and any other philosophy.

Following his Master, the disciple is becoming more and more like Him, emulating Christ’s thinking, feeling, and living. In obedience, Christ’s disciple embraces the goal to disciple others, from every nation, understanding that the Great Commission is Christ’s commandment, not suggestion!

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.