Results of Discipleship

“truth” Our question is the same as that of Pilate (John 18:38) who said: “What is truth?” We are told that the truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17) and that He is full of truth (John 1:14), but there is a fuller meaning involved which we will find later in John (14:6) that Jesus is the truth. The truth is bound up with His Person and work and results in freedom. This freedom is the very reason Jesus came (Luke 4:18).

Luke 4:18  “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed,

Results of True discipleship

• knowledge of the truth
  According to this verse and the previous one, real discipleship (and abiding in the word of Jesus) results in a knowledge of the truth. This is only natural when the teacher is the possessor and even the embodiment of the truth. Jesus shows us the real values of life. But even more than this, Jesus is the truth so getting to know the truth is getting to know Jesus. If we abide in His words, we will get to know Him better.
• freedom
  Another result of abiding in His words and of being a true disciple is freedom. This is not a freedom from ignorance in which intellectual gaining of the truth results. What does it bring us freedom from?
  • fear
    We never need to walk alone again; Jesus is always with us (Mat 28:20, John 14:23).
    Mat 28:20  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
    
    John 14:23  Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
  • self
    The truth of Jesus can recreate a man and make him into a brand new person (2 Cor 5:17).
    2 Cor 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
  • other people
    No longer must we care what other people think or say about us; that is meaningless in the light of what God thinks of us.
  • sin
    No longer must we be slaves to sin. (Rom 6:18, 8:2)
    Rom 6:18  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
    
    Rom 8:2  because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
• we become like Jesus
  The purpose of discipleship is fulfilled. Jesus came to impart life to us and not knowledge. (John 6:63) “Discipleship is more than getting to know what the teacher knows. It is getting to be what he is.” (Ortiz 105)