Fully Trained

             The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. (Luke 6:40 NIV) With these words Jesus encouraged his disciples to receive the training he was giving them each day. For their part, the disciples were interested in being trained by Jesus, but they were also interested in their own concerns and plans for their lives. Discipleship always creates tension between our personal wills and our desire to follow and obey God. In many ways we resist being fully trained.

But can you imagine what it would look like for a group of people to actually be fully trained as disciples of Jesus? To be fully trained, quite simply, means to become like Jesus in attitude and action. So if we want to understand what Jesus meant by fully trained we simply need to notice what was important to him. I found four things that consistently arise in Jesus life – prayer, service, speaking the good news, and obedience. These practices were foundational to Jesus’ identity, they were also crucial for the completion of his mission.

For disciples these practices are not optional, rather they form the core of what it means to follow Jesus.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8 NIV)

We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2:3-6 NIV)

This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. (1 John 4:17 NIV)

Possessing the mind of Jesus. Living as Jesus lived. Like Jesus. All these are powerful ways of saying that it is possible to be fully trained! When disciples accept the training, and then live like Jesus – the world changes! Let’s get trained by Jesus…

   - Kenny Payne