Portrait of a Disciple

Well yesterday I made the biggest mistake of my life, and did the worst thing I could have possibly done. I betrayed the only man who ever saw my full potential, the man I called teacher, the man I have been learning under for three years of my life, the man they call Jesus.

Jesus knew I would be the one who betrayed him, and the one who ultimately lead him to the torture and the cross where he died today. He knew I would be the one who sold him to the authorities, but that didn’t change how he taught me that didn’t change how he discipled me.

One thing that he did with me that didn’t ever do with me is that I never felt inferior, I never felt like he was pushing me away. He taught me by teaching me like he taught everyone else. He built relationships with all of us. We all had our flaws and we all had our setbacks, but that didn’t keep him from loving us and reaching out to us. He built a relationship with us and taught us all despite how he knew we were going to fail and where we all had struggles. We were all going to fail and we were all going to miss the mark, yet he still discipled us, and in the midst of our failings he encouraged us and taught us through lessons and parables, when he was teaching the crowds we were also learning.

I can’t believe he hung around with us or that he even called us to follow him. We were not scholars, we had been sent home from rabbinical school, we were not great minds, nor were we great people. He was the king, and now I see that, but yet he chose us, and that makes no sense to me why he did that. So often we frustrated him and we drove him crazy. We frustrated him and we drove him to the end of his rope. We would run away or forget to trust him and yet he would still love us and still build relationships with us no matter what we did or how terribly we fell apart he still poured his life and time into us. We were his disciples, and he discipled us with his love, with his understanding, and by building relationships, no matter whether we fell or not.

Something happened the other day that now that I am thinking about it truly blew me away. Before we sat down to effectively what would be our master’s “last supper” he took a cloth and a basin of water, and he knelt down and insisted on washing all of our feet. He started with Peter, and he washed all of our feet, including mine. He knew I was going to betray him, and he knew I had already been to the Sanhedrin and had taken their money to betray him, and yet he washed my feet. He was so focused on building a relationship with me that he loved me through everything I did or was going to do.

Now I sit here, and for thirty pieces of silver I betrayed the one I called master. The very one who called me to follow him and built a relationship with me, I walked away from for 30 pieces of silver. I know that no matter what I do he will still love me but I can’t take this guilt anymore. I have to give this money back; no money is worth the life of my savior. I can’t live with this regret and this shame anymore. What have I done? What have I done!?

Bob Hulett

I really liked the position that Bob took on the church. I feel like it is really a great position to be in when it comes to the church making an influence on this world. It was hard to get a true and deep feel to what some of his thoughts were or where they would go if more deeply understood, because he is a lot like me and tended to jump from topic to topic, but all of those topics were interesting.

I liked what he had to say about being intentional about setting up opportunities for people to interact with God, but first they need to have a first positive experience with church. If the first time that we bring someone to the church and they have a bad experience, then what is going to make them want to come back or even have an experience with the God who is at the center of this thing. We need to make sure that we are putting a good face on the church. People don’t want to interact with a church that is negative or doesn’t seem to be a positive thing. We need to be reaching out and people need to be seeing the church as positive. We want them to experience the God we serve, but first we need to make sure that the God we serve is seen in our lives and that he is something that they would want, and something that they feel they need because they can see the beauty and life that it has brought to our lives.

Dr. Mcnaughton

I really enjoyed the talk that we had with Dr. McNaughton on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed his approach to discipleship, and I feel like he has a really good grasp and outlook on discipleship. We talked a little bit about his earlier life and how when he was searching for answers it was hard for him to find them because he didn’t have anyone to disciple him and helping him find those answers.

That is where my question came in. I asked “do you think that if you had had someone to disciple you would it have made it easier to find those answers and do you think that is something we lack in the church?” To which he of course said yes to both of those questions, and I would totally agree with him.

I feel like one of the big things that we are missing in the church is that pouring into each other, that sharing our wisdom from those further along to those who are still struggling and who are still asking questions. I feel like we need to set up a system of discipling and pouring into each other. That is how we learn. We should be helping each other find the truth. There are those of us who are further along on the journey who should be lending our hands to helping those who are still asking questions. Christ discipled a few and helped them further understand and we are called to do the same thing. It is something we are lacking and something we need to be better at doing.

Tom Rees

It was a really interesting to hear the story of Tom Rees and get a chance to discuss how that really reflected and influenced his life as he continued to grow up. Through his childhood he has multiple father figures in his life and as he told his story it was clear that his relationships with his father figures really shaped his life.

I have talked with people before who have taken events similar to those in Tom’s life and used them as a crutch or as an excuse as to why they aren’t required to try in life, but this was not what I gathered through Tom’s story.

We talked a lot about how his father figures influenced his life. It was encouraging to hear Tom talk about how that didn’t paralyze him in his life, but rather he had to deal with the issues that arose from it, but it pushed him to go deeper and do more for the kingdom and that was a really interesting to hear, that something like that doesn’t have to freeze you in your walk, but it can drive you further, and that is always something we need to hear, and something we need to be reminded of. Sure the things in our past come with different things that we need to work through, but those things should propel us forward rather than hold us back.