GPBC Blog

Lately I have been meditating on love, the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:29–31), and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20).

Love, as referenced in the Greatest Commandment, is specific in its two directions. First, we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This kind of love is best understood as whole-life devotion and obedience to an amazing King, one who rules with authority and yet has a passionate heart for the people He reigns over.

Second, we are called to love others in the way Jesus ultimately demonstrated on the cross: sacrificial, costly love that puts others before ourselves.

When Jesus is asked about the Greatest Commandment, He sums up the entire Law, everything, as being about a loving relationship with God and a loving relationship with others. Every command exists to protect those relationships. The Ten Commandments do this explicitly, and everything God commands afterward flows from the same purpose. The Greatest Commandment, then, is fundamentally a call to BE: to be obedient, to be devoted, to be worshipful, to be rightly ordered in love.

Then we turn to the Great Commission.

Jesus declares that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything He commanded, and assuring us of His continual presence. To make disciples, we must first know what a disciple is. The working definition we are using is this: a disciple is someone who follows Jesus, is being changed by Jesus, and is on mission with Jesus.

In that sense, the Great Commission becomes a call to DO. We do our part in helping someone follow Jesus. We do our part, through obedience and participation and empowered by the Holy Spirit, in being changed by Jesus. And we do our part in helping others join Jesus on mission.

The goal of that discipleship is spiritual maturity, or more plainly, an increased ability to love God and love people. This brings us full circle back to the two expressions of love found in the Greatest Commandment. Discipleship, then, is not linear. It is cyclical, much like trying to jump into a jump-rope game as kids. Timing matters. You step in, stumble, adjust, and grow. Over time, you find the rhythm.

So where do we start?

The best place to look for direction is the One who did it perfectly: Jesus.

As we examine Jesus’ life with His disciples, we see a clear and intentional pattern. He shared His life with them, its rhythms, relationships, and daily practices. He taught new truths and modeled new ways of living that connected them to God, to one another, and to their God-given purpose. He trained them for ministry through both example and command. And in the end, He released them to replicate what He had modeled, forming disciples through intimacy with Him and obedience to His teachings.

If the Greatest Commandment calls us to BE, and the Great Commission calls us to DO, then discipleship must be both relational and intentional.

A simple place to begin is by asking two questions:

• Who are you becoming as you follow Jesus?
• And who is being impacted because you are following Jesus?

Lovingly share the first with the second. Share what God is doing in you. Share the promises He has kept and why He has kept them, grounded in Scripture. Share the rhythms of your relationship with Jesus. Start by sharing, and watch as God brings growth. Do these things intentionally and watch the Holy Spirit do the work only He can do.

This is not all of the steps of discipleship. It is the first step of an incredible journey, one that continually calls us to BE and to DO, as each fuels and deepens the other.