We understand through some of the series that we have been going through who a disciple is. But for the sake of some people who are just joining us, we would have to define again who a disciple is. We are familiar with the word 'disciple' and many times when we hear this word, we quickly ascribe it to the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ as though they were the only disciples that have existed or will ever exist. The word disciple actually means one that have decided, that have made up his or her mind to submit to another one that he or she consider to be superior having knowledge experience or expertise in something that the disciple desire to know or to become. So, you cannot be a disciple until you have made up your mind to be one.

            So being a disciple is not a title as it were that is conferred on somebody. It is a decision that is made consciously. So a disciple is one that have chosen to submit or to learn. For you to learn, it means you have to bring yourself under submission. That person decided to submit to another one. So, for there to be a disciple, there must be a discipler. You can't say somebody is a disciple when the person does not have a discipler. To qualify as one who is a disciple, the person must have a discipler. That person has made up his or her mind to submit to another one which we have established to be a discipler that has experience, expertise or knowledge that the disciple desires to know or to become.

            So in discipleship, there is a disciple, the one who makes up his or her mind to submit, and there is a discipler, the one that is submitted to that has the knowledge and the experience, and the expertise. And that person has that expertise so that the disciple can learn from him and become who he is. So the end point of discipleship is that the disciple becomes like the discipler. Now with this understanding that we have gained, we want to look at the disciple's walk. That means the one that is going and have decided to submit, what is the kind of walk that is required of such a person.

            Walk is a verb, and it is an action word. The disciple is definite a person. Now we want to look at the action of this disciple in walking. When I say Mr. John that you are walking, you know it is a present continuous tense. That means you are carrying on an action that you are still presently engage in. Now when I say walk, it is present tense. Meaning that it is something that you are engaged in or you have engaged in or you have engaged yourself in. When it becomes past is when you have stopped doing it. But when it is present, that means you are still doing it and you will still do it. So a disciples walk is what we are examining. One that have decided to submit, what kind of walk is expected of such person.

            Now for the sake of this teaching, we know that as disciples, our discipler is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says until we all come into the unity of faith, and we grow up into the fullness of the stature of Christ. So our discipler is Christ, and you and I are the ones that have make up our mind when we became born again to walk with Him. How do we walk with the Lord? How do we walk with Christ Jesus?

            There is a walk for every disciple and that walk is individual. Many times, have you seen a situation where children are gathered together in a classroom, for example, in your primary school days, you were like say twenty in your class for example but twenty of you came from different homes. It is in rare cases you will find two pupils from the same home in a class, except maybe they are twins anyway, or maybe the elder of the siblings is slow with learning and the younger caught up with them in class. Usually what you have is that the students come from various homes and they are gathered together in the classroom. And in most cases, it is usually one teacher with the whole pupils in the class. The pupils come together to that class simply because there is something that the teacher has that they all must learn or know.

            So usually people come from different places into that one discipler with a common interest, there is always a common interest, but it is still individual. You come by yourself. And that is why there is no team salvation. Everyone came to Jesus individually to enrol for this discipleship individually. That is why disciple's walk is an individual walk. The same way you came is the same way you must remain on your own lain. You have come to Him and you have found a lane for yourself, even though all of us have a common destination in Christ, all of us will get there individually. No wonder in Revelation Jesus said I come and I knock, whosoever opens, I would come in and dine with him. So it is individual. John 3:16 says for God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

            So the invitation to discipleship in Jesus is individual and your walk must also be individual. So if you are born in the house of a pastor and you think we the family of Balogun, we are now born again, we are now following Jesus, it would be later for you when you now discover that it is not the family of Balogun that became born again, it is your father Mr. Balogun that became born again and he is infiltrating the kingdom of God into the household of Balogun, but each of you as members of the household of Balogun must meet Jesus on your own, because that is where you will start your own walk with the Lord.

            So this walk is individual and personal. Jesus experience is a personal experience. Discipleship in Jesus is a personal experience. You cannot do it as a group. This is why we must get it right at the foundation. It is an individual walk. The Jesus that you know is the Jesus that you will become. It is not the Jesus that someone else know. The Jesus that you know and see is the Jesus that you become. Jesus had twelve disciples, did all of them become like Him? Did all of them become Peter or John or Matthew or James? All of them had personal and individual experiences, because it is an individual walk. Even the three that were in Jesus' inner circle Peter, James and John, their experiences were different because this thing is individual. It is not because we walk together then we will now experience the same thing, No!

            Let us even look at it from physical point of view. If Mr. Biola and I and Mr. Francis stand on the same spot and we are looking towards the same thing, there is this very high probability that we would not see the same thing even though we are standing on the same spot and arrive at the same spot together. We would not see the same thing, and why? Because of our individual differences. That is why a disciple's walk is a personal walk. You have to know Jesus for yourself. The experience of each disciple is premise on his or her walk with the discipler. Your experience is to the degree of your walk. Peter, James and John were with Jesus on the Mount of transfiguration, The remaining Nine were not there. Did the remaining nine see Moses and Elijah? If there was something that required such an experience, will the remaining nine be able to share from that experience and revelation? The reason is because they were not there.

            Who were the three that were with Him at the time? Peter, James and John. On the Mount of transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, and the three were having a conversation. Suddenly Peter, James and John woke up and they were thrilled by that singular experience and one of them suggested that a tabernacle be built for Elijah, Moses and Jesus so that they can remain perpetually on the mountain of transfiguration. Then before their very own eyes, Moses left, Elijah left and they were left with Jesus alone. Do you think in their lives, they ever forgot that experience? But the people that were not there, did they have an experience? Nothing to remember. They were not there and so, they cannot be reminded of the experience that they did not partake of.

            And that is why we must understand that our experience as disciples is to the degree of our walk with the Lord. The deeper your walk the deeper your experience, the shallow your walk the shallow your experience. No wonder Peter, James and John became the pillars in the church because they had such a deep experience with the Lord. The life of discipleship is not seasonal, it is not for a season. The life of a disciple is not seasonal. You can't be with the Lord in a season and you are away, you can't be a Nicodemus disciples that come to Jesus only in the dead of the night. Discipleship isn't like that, you don't sit on the fence in discipleship. You don't do here and there, you stay with the Lord.

            No wonder the disciples of Jesus were daily with Him. When He was hungry they knew. When He was healing the sick, they were there. It is not as if they were being told what Jesus did, No. They experienced it firsthand. They saw the healings and the miracles happened. They were daily walking with Him, they were not taking break away from Him. You can't take a break from knowing the Lord and walking with Him, it is full time and it is not seasonal. It is daily, moment by moment, because each moment has its own experience. Jesus said it is good for Him to go away so that He can send the one that will always be with us all the time. The one that can disciple that is not limited in human vessel and limited by geographical location as well, the person of the Holy Spirit, who can disciple in such a way that we would end up being like Jesus.

            So as disciples, our discipleship walk is a walk with the Holy Spirit. You can't take a break from the Holy Spirit if you are truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, because that is how you can be like Him. You cannot go on vacation. He has made it easy for us to walk with Him and to be like Him as disciples. Romans 8:38-39

³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            When you use the word persuaded, it means you are not cajoled or pampered into it. When a man or a woman is persuaded about certain things, changing their minds on that thing usually becomes very difficult. It means the person is fully into it. These are disciples talking. Their walk with the Lord have gotten to the point of full persuasion. That is a disciple's walk, walking with the Lord to the point of full persuasion. This level we are talking about, a group or a denomination or attending services cannot get you here. It is personal and it takes an individual walk to get to this point.

Philippians 1:19-21, this is Apostle Paul talking here. It says:

¹⁹ For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, ²⁰ according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹ For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

            This revelation above by Apostle Paul is individual, this is a personal confession. He is not telling us to repeat after him or a memory verse, it is an expression of conviction. As a disciple you must walk to a point that you are convinced, you are convicted in your heart about your stand with the Lord. Nobody is persuading or cajoling you. People can't become disciples through cajoling. Jesus told Peter to follow Him, and become His disciple. No wonder Peter was able to raise Dorcas, the same way and principle he saw Jesus raised Jarius daughter. That is a disciple. When you are fully discipled by Jesus, you will live the life of Christ. Nobody will be begging you.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Lara Gboyega Adedeji!

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