Disciples of Jesus Christ to Make Disciples For Jesus Christ: Other Titles, #4

By Theodore Andoseh

The messages in this book were delivered at the Third World Convention of Christian Missionary Fellowship International at her headquarters in Koume, Bertoua, Cameroon from 8th to 17th December, 2019 to brethren of the Community from 93 nations from the six continents. We were gathered to give account to God, thank and celebrate Him who blessed and enabled us to accomplish the Phase 2 goal of our work.

These messages serve as an orientation for the pursuit of the goal, and directives for our work in the next five to seven years. In pursuing these directives as a disciple-making movement, God being our Helper, and by the blessings of the Lord, we expect to be a community in which every member loves the Lord Jesus or returns to the first love for the Lord Jesus.

Our heart cry to the Lord is that these messages would help keep us on the rails and stir us to work hard at accomplishing the goal that we joyously accepted from and committed ourselves to before our blessed Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books4revival
• Release date: Jun 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9798215485057

Theodore Andoseh

The current leader of Christian Missionary Fellowship Internation

Book preview

1

EXCERPTS ON BEING A DISCIPLE AND MAKING DISCIPLES FOR JESUS CHRIST

We begin with key quotations taken from the first few chapters of this book. We do this in order to give you at least an introductory view of the things you are going to come across shortly.

The return to the first love for the Lord Jesus Christ will include faithfulness in becoming and being a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

We want to start to intelligently make disciples for Jesus Christ, because our ministry is not only bringing people to know Jesus Christ; it is building them to obey Him in everything.

We bring them to know Him, we build them to obey Him. We bring them to know Him; that is evangelism. We build them to obey Him; that is the making of disciples.

I want My children to move ahead and witness or preach, lead the willing to invite Me into their hearts and begin to disciple them for the Lord Jesus, believing that I have transferred them from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus, and it will be as they have believed that I have done it. (ZTF in the Santa Cruz prophecy).

What God expects from us is that we become disciples of Jesus Christ who can make disciples for Jesus Christ, that you and I become disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ who can make disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ.

God commanded us to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ by obeying Him and bringing others to obey Him as we have done. So the Roman Catholic church has one Pope, but the aberrations in the making of disciples have produced a CMFI with almost 10,000 popes. Everybody has disciples that are answerable to his will, and that are under his authority, disciples that do his bidding. So, we have not made disciples of the Lord Jesus.

If you are my disciple, know that I am making you into a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

What is involved in being a disciple of the Lord Jesus? – 1 : To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus, you have to deal with the person of Jesus Christ. You have to confront the person of Jesus Christ, believe in Him and receive Him. Discipleship starts with a person: it starts with dealing with the person of Jesus Christ.

What is involved in discipleship? – 2: Discipleship to Jesus Christ involves trusting the work of Jesus Christ: all that Jesus Christ did on earth, and the reason for which He did it; what He did on the cross, and the reasons for which He did it, and all that Jesus is doing from the throne and the reasons for which He is doing it. A disciple of Jesus Christ knows what He has done, embraces it and trusts it for life and for eternity.

For the disciple of Jesus Christ, the work of Jesus is final. That is the second aspect of discipleship to Jesus Christ.

Discipleship to Jesus Christ also signifies that he (the disciple) will obey His word. The Lord Himself said: If you are my disciples, obey my word. You are disciples of the person whose word you obey.

At one time many disciples said, This is a difficult teaching, who can endure it? And Jesus told them: The letter profits nothing, it is the spirit that gives life. The words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life. at that they left. And then He turned to the apostles, You, what are you doing? Are you not going away also? And Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!"

It was the words that divided the crowds. Some went away because of the words, some stayed because of the words.

Nobody had a quarrel with Jesus’ works; the determinant filter was His words. If you can show someone what the scriptures say, how Jesus behaved, and it is not final to them, you are not talking to a disciple. If he has another opinion, then Jesus’ word is not final. Discipleship to Jesus Christ is obeying His word.

Discipleship to Jesus Christ is following His model. There are those about whom Peter said: ... the Lord Jesus Christ left us a model that we should follow in His steps. When they insulted Him, He did not return insult for insult. Discipleship to Jesus is following the example of Jesus in interpersonal relationships. If you will not relate as Jesus related, you are not His disciple.

No disciple is greater than his teacher: Do as I have done. I am amongst you as the one who serves everybody, not the one who is served; not because I do not know that I am Lord; and I am Master. His example is final. The disciple of Jesus follows His model; that is what discipleship is.

So we do not need complicated dynamics to understand clearly that discipleship to Jesus Christ is to follow His model, believe His person, trust His work, obey His word, and serve His mission. Jesus told His disciples: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!

There is a mission in discipleship. You cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ without a vocation. Discipleship to Jesus is a vocation.

Every disciple has a task; every disciple is on a mission; it is not optional for the disciple. A disciple does not choose whether to save souls or not; such a choice does not exist.

According to the Lord Jesus, any seed that fell on the ground and that did not produce 100, 60 or 30 others is a lost seed. So, the average believer in CMFI must present 30 people that he has brought to Christ, not for CMFI, but to validate that he is a true seed. If not, he is just a seed on the stony ground or a seed on the thorny ground. If you cannot find your 30, you are in danger of going to the Gehenna.

Win souls and establish the authenticity of your discipleship. Win the souls, not for a man, nor a denomination, nor for accountability; but so that we can meet you and call you brother, and call you sister. We have no right to call anyone brother or sister who has not won 30 souls who are abiding. On what grounds should we call him brother? The Master said: You shall know them by their fruit; and He said: The good soil brings forth 30 more, 60 more, 100 more. You are on trial until you show us your 30.

What discipleship to Jesus Christ is: His work, we trust; His Word to obey, His model to follow. If you do not like the life of Jesus and the choices of Jesus, tell us now, so that we can start evangelizing you. In His mission to accomplish His goal, He says: You did not choose me; I chose you, that I might send you to bear fruit.

The early disciples were described as the people of The Way.

Discipleship to Jesus Christ, apart from putting on His model, is following His way ─ His way of doing things. It is doing the will of God; you do the will of God, you serve and you are blessed.

Discipleship to Jesus is not just a creed; it is power; Jesus gave us that. Discipleship is power: If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself.

The Lord Jesus says: ... in the same way, any of you that does not renounce all that he has, he cannot be my disciple.

The power to follow has to do with a deliberate attitude towards materialism. Some people have power to be disciples because Jesus has shown us the power of discipleship. Take away the stifling and limiting factors so that you can be a disciple; so that you can follow Him!

Discipleship to Jesus Christ starts with believing His person and receiving His person.

Discipleship to Jesus does not start from outside, in conduct, that is religion; and it is impotent. Discipleship to Jesus Christ is not something that we put on from outside; it is from inside; it is a life that is received by believing that Jesus Christ who was born in Nazareth as a man, is the Christ that God promised who is His Son. And the Bible says: If we believe with the heart and confess with the mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord, we shall be saved.

Discipleship starts with an encounter with Christ unto life. There are many pathways to Christ in the Bible. When I was just looking at the example of Matthew, I asked myself: How did people meet Christ?

There is the encounter with Christ that may lead to salvation; I have used the word correctly: ‘may’ that may lead to salvation, because some people met Christ and they were not saved, and they did not receive life!

There is a revelational knowledge of Christ that gives one access into God’s presence, an authority access. So knowing the person of Christ is the first step to discipleship, so that you can disciple someone with ease from a principle of life.

Discipleship starts from inside as a principle of life, by believing in the person of Jesus and receiving Him.

Discipleship to Jesus is trusting the work of Jesus absolutely and placing all your life and hope on what Jesus has accomplished. This is the secret of spiritual provisions for life and for the making of disciples.

Discipleship to Jesus is appropriating all the provisions that Jesus Christ has made so that you can live His life.

When it comes to the work of Jesus Christ, it is best to understand the work of Jesus in three stages:

First, what Jesus did during the 30 years of His life on earth: the authority by which He worked. That authority came from His appointed office as the Christ of God. All that Jesus Christ did while He was on earth was with the authority of the one that God has appointed. It was the authority of His appointment, the prerogative of His office. All that the Lord Jesus did on earth, He did by virtue of the authority of His office. When we put someone in the office of the president, he has executive powers, prerogatives in the use of national resources for the accomplishment of national objectives. When Jesus came as the Christ of God, He was vested with authority ─ the authority of the office as the Christ of God.

In all that Jesus has done, He has given sufficient provision for all who would be His disciples; to represent Him and to serve. Before the Great Commission, He told them: All authority in heaven, and on the earth and under the earth has been given to Me. Now go!

The disciple of Jesus has trusted in the Name; he has trusted in the blood of Jesus and has trusted in the Holy Spirit. In the meetings of many leaders, the preoccupation has not been with sharpening the relationship with the Lord Jesus; there have not been cries to God to deepen this relationship.

The first word and command of Jesus for the disciples is His life. The Word was made flesh; that Word was made flesh. He is the Word of God, made incarnate in the Lord Jesus. Every aspect of His life is a proclamation of the Word. The life He lived is light for men.

Discipleship to Jesus is obeying His commands and His teachings.

John 15:9-15: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

John 10:34-35: Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken.

The scriptures cannot be broken. The disciple obeys the word of God; he obeys the scriptures. The scriptures cannot be broken. Discipleship is obedience to His word.

What is discipleship? It is by the exertion of ourselves to become like our Lord Jesus Christ, to accomplish His goal so that the earth be filled with the sons of God who are like Christ, clothed with the effulgence of the nature of God. This is so that the earth may be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Numbers, glory; numbers and glory. That is what disciple making is all about.

The first factor of disciple-making is maturation; the maturation that requires you and I to put on Christ; that you become matured. Disciple-making as far as the individual is concerned involves first of all maturation.

The second factor in disciple-making involves multiplication, that is, numbers, cell division, viral astronomical multiplication. Multiplications, replication.

The third factor in disciple making involves mission. Other places, other homes, other tribes, other towns, other villages, other nations, other peoples, other cultures and other languages.

Discipleship to Jesus is maintaining a relationship with Jesus. Becoming a friend to Jesus is based on one thing: Obey His commands. Do what He has told you.

John 6:60-69: On hearing it, many of his disciples said, This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it? Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ​Yet there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ​He went on to say, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him. ​From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ​You do not want to leave too, do you? Jesus asked the Twelve. ​Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ​We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

For the disciple, the way of Christ is final. For the disciple, the example of Christ is final.

Discipleship to Jesus is accomplishing the vision. The mission of Jesus is both a vocation, that is, a calling, and a commission, a sending. The mission of Jesus is a calling. The disciple has that calling; every disciple has that calling.

Mark 1:17: Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men.

Luke 19:10: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

This was His mission.

The disciple is called by Jesus, and Jesus deliberately shares His mission with a disciple, so that the disciple should have a sense of mission. Discipleship is a sense of vocation. And discipleship is a sense of mission.

What are the enemies of discipleship? What are the enemies of discipleship to Christ?

Your love for your parents: your legitimate love for your parents, your legitimate love for your father and all the claims he makes on you, your legitimate love for your mother and all the claims that that makes on you, your legitimate love for your brothers and sisters and all the implications of that natural love, your healthy love for yourself, with all the accompanying ambitions for self-fulfillment, your healthy love for yourself for self-actualization. All of that, your love for yourself to make something out of your life by accomplishments, by pleasure. Jesus says that those are the things that obstruct the life of discipleship to Christ.

The Lord co-works only with His disciples. If you reject being a disciple and rush to serve Him, you have missed it. Let us settle the whole issue of absolute surrender; then we can serve Him.

In the making of disciples, we should clearly tell people: This religious leader in our ministry is a son of Belial; do not imitate him; he is wicked! And we should clearly tell our disciples: This one is following God; do like him!

In the making of disciples, the people that are your disciples are people you want. It is not everybody in the crowd who has a claim to be called your disciple because he wants. He selected those that He wanted. He wanted them. He liked them.

He ministered to all, but for the making of disciples, He selected those that He wanted.

In the making of disciples, there is a personal element of choice, of selection. He selected twelve whom He designated apostles.

He designated them apostles. Apostle means, The people I will send; my assistants. That name, that designation, shows the intentionality in the making of disciples.

In the making of disciples, there is intentionality with regard to relationship. The relationship is defined. It is not ministering to people in a general way and hoping that the best would come out of it. He designated them to be apostles. In selecting those people, there was intentionality in the relationship and in the election.

The making of disciples is not classroom teaching; it works by relationships and impartations. To be with Him was not for concepts to be received. It wasn’t teaching to be received. It was friendship to be with Him.

Nobody is your disciple unless he joins you in accomplishing your goal. There is intentionality and there is goal-directedness. To be sent out!

In the making of disciples, there is a process of selection. There is a dialectical context of alignment and formation in being with Him! There is intentionality in the whole relationship. There is a goal, a vocation. It is a school of preachers. They know from day 1 when they are entering that they will be sent to preach. And there is something to obtain. There is something to possess: spiritual authority for ministry.

In the making of disciples, we relate with people until they know you spiritually; but do you even know yourself spiritually? Do you know the difference between the flatterer and the one who has received a revelation? Those who have received a revelation