The Call to Discipleship
"Come Follow Me"The Call to Discipleship
Written by Manny Gonzalez
People in our world “want” lots of money, success, good vibes, Instagram followers, Tik-Tok views, their dream home, and all the other things that our culture has made us believe will fulfill the longing we have in our heart for more; more to this life that we experience.
Our culture has tricked us into thinking those things are more. We have even been formed to think that there must be more to our sexuality, our gender, and our relationships, because that longing that we all feel deep in our souls MUST be filled.
The unfortunate reality about these worldly fixes for our longing is that all those things are temporary fixes to an everlasting problem.
Every person at some point in their life has a longing for more. Deep down, it isn’t more things, or more money, or more success or more acclaim, but to the very thing that all those things try to fill. A longing for meaning and purpose, a longing to wake up and face the day with joy, a longing for peace and mental clarity, a longing to be loved and cherished.
A Samaritan woman was drawing water from a well at an odd time in the afternoon; a time no one else draws water. Her reasoning was not due to impatience and not wanting to wait in line, she was ashamed of her life, and didn’t want people to see her and gossip.
Jesus shows up for a drink of water and begins to start conversation with her1. On the outside, she was just a woman at the well getting some water because she was thirsty, but on the inside, she was longing for more. Longing to be loved and accepted, and longing for a better life than what she had. Jesus knew what she really wanted.
Jesus said to her:
13 “Everyone who drinks this water [water from the well] will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” – John 4:13-15
The water Jesus was offering her was a relationship with him.
We have an eternal longing in our heart, a longing that will continue if it isn’t filled with something everlastingly satisfying. For our souls, that is a relationship with Jesus; a relationship that wells up to eternal life.
The more that we long for is living in Jesus and with Jesus. In him is the fullness of all we long for and need.
The invitation to be in relationship with Jesus, is an invitation for Jesus to be our Savior, our Lord, our friend, but also our rabbi. As our rabbi, Jesus calls us into a transformative process called discipleship. Discipleship can be understood best by thinking of apprenticeship. The journey of learning under someone’s leadership. Jesus invites us to apprentice under him to learn what it means to be the human he made us to be.
There is more to this life, and Jesus wants to show you. His simple invitation is: “Come follow me.”
If we desire our lives to be transformed to be more like Christ, we must commit our lives to sometimes painful lifelong journey of Jesus redeeming, restoring, and re-storying our lives. There is no way to experience this type of transformation without committing to the kind of life that produces it. The lifestyle is discipleship to Jesus!
“The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality.” – Dallas Willard