Reflect: With Jesus’ impending death, He was reflecting upon the three years of ministry and life He experienced with His followers. They were His tribe, who became family to Him and whom He loved. He summarized it to His Abba, Father as He prayed to Him. In verse six, He says, “Father, I have manifested who you really are and I have revealed you to the men and women that you gave to me. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have fastened your Word firmly to their hearts (TPT – The Passion Translation).” This passage indicates that Jesus taught and displayed to His followers the loving character of His Father and how to live a life that would be pleasing to God. He taught them the importance in having a heartfelt, spiritually fervent life. Then, He brought them alongside Himself to experience that life by helping others, healing people, living in unity, and every day to depend on God. This is how Jesus revealed to His followers this new way of living that included integrating their hearts, hands and minds. In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees and Sadducees (religious people of the day) were prideful, legalistic and their lives were centered around rules and regulations. They kept their religion in their heads and their acts were about looking good to others. Then, Jesus comes along and reveals this radical life of serving others from the heart and intimacy with a loving Father. This is the new type of mindset and lifestyle in which Jesus lead and taught His disciples. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 5:17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
Imagine if every Christian picked even one person to disciple in this new way of living? The world’s values and attitudes would be turned inside out and upside down, by touching one life at a time. The influence you can have through discipleship of even one person can be a world-changer, as we see in this story of one mom who was extremely intentional about discipling her daughter to live this way. There was a little girl born in Albania. Her mother had a heart for helping those going through hardships.
When a neighbor was ill or having difficulties, the mother would take her little girl with her bringing with them prepared meals. They would feed the ailing people and take care of other needs that individuals had. The little girl grew and by the time she was 12, she knew that she was called to the mission field to help those less fortunate than herself. At age 19, the girl, was living a life as a missionary in Calcutta. She would eventually became known as Mother Teresa, and she would impact the world greatly with her love for God and the poor. Imagine if her mother had told her to stay at home while she went alone to help her neighbors? Mother Teresa’s mom was a great role model in discipling her daughter like Jesus modeled for us.
