You were auto-enrolled in discipleship school when you became born-again in Christ Jesus. There is no waiting period where Jesus is Savior; then, one day, He becomes Lord, and then you become His disciple. Salvation without Lordship is a manmade doctrine or religious construct based on the intention of the will with no regard to internal change or the eternal Word of God. The outside remains dirty because the inside didn’t change. But the person seems sincere in their words and declarations but are not concerned with a dirty diaper. And there are who are changed in a moment and are concerned about their outside but are left in their burial clothes as Lazarus was until Jesus commanded them to change him. Many believers are neglected because that have not been told the need for discipleship.
Paul, an apostle, tells us several times not to argue over words as they do not lead to righteous living. So, rather than be a word police when I hear someone say Jesus is my Savior but not yet my Lord, I let them define what they say before redirecting appropriately.
Believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved. Romans 10:8-10 tells us how to carry out John 3:16. But I won't get hung up on their words if their heart means something else. Also, Romans assume we see our need to repent and now want to turn to God. Yet many churches tell people to receive Jesus but nothing about repenting.
Repenting and turning to God means relinquishing our life's control to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Repentance is first repenting over ownership of one's life, not a singular sin, but the source of sin. I am not capable or trustworthy to own my life. Left to my own, I will kill, steal, and destroy at some level to get my way. A level that is most likely acceptable to my current society's norms but not to God's eternal laws. When I was saved, I didn't know half the story of how much I was a sinner in need of a Savior. My need for a Savior and Lord doesn't grow with knowledge but only reveals how far short of the glory of God I have fallen. And how much I need the discipline of discipleship.
Jesus does not save anyone who does not relinquish their life to Him as Lord. If Jesus is not our Lord, He is not our Savior. Everyone who comes to Him must lay down their life, take up their cross, and follow Him. Some call this Lordship Salvation a supposed work-based salvation rather than being saved by faith alone. However, Lordship is age-appropriate and a continual turning away from sin to God. A decision made in a moment of time is maintained daily through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Being born-again is a restart. A new chance. A new position of living. And just like the first-born experience, we grow and learn. As we age, appropriate responsibility is expected. A three-year-old will not be held accountable as a nine-year-old, fifteen-year-old, or adult. So, it is so with the born-again experience and the automatic enrollment into disciple school.
When someone says, Jesus is my Savior, but I haven't made Him my Lord yet. I ask, then, what have you been saved from? The person gives a moral failure or the consequence of moral failure, Hell. My reply is we need to be saved from more than moral failure and Hell. We need to be saved because of ourselves! We are the problem. We are not just victims of sin but complicit with sin. We cannot be trusted with the ownership of our life. We need a Lord to come in, take ownership, make us stewards, and teach us how to live righteously toward God and people as disciples of Christ.
The moment we are born-again, we become the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. We cannot earn righteousness. We can only walk in it by grace with intention as a disciple as The Spirit of Truth, The Holy Spirit, gives correction.
Many people applied to be a disciple of Jesus but failed to finish the application before walking away. A rich, young, moral ruler applied but walked away when he found that he had to turn his finances over to Jesus. Another man applied to follow Jesus until he heard it came with rejection and prejudice. Jesus and His disciples were rejected for a place to stay in a Samaritan town ahead and had to sleep under the stars with no place for Jesus to lay His head. The man who sought a life of comfort walked away.
Countless people applied to follow Jesus but fell short when it came to the question: who will you put first? Jesus and the Kingdom of God or your mother, father, brother, sister, or even your life?
Other people lied or were presumptions on their application because they walked away when Jesus said eat my flesh and drink my blood. Jesus as Lord is offensive as times. But if you believe Jesus has eternal life, you will do whatever He says to do.
So, where did we get this idea of opting out of discipleship and remaining a baby Christian for the rest of our earthly lives?
One day, some people approached Jesus and asked Him why Moses gave divorce. Jesus responded because of the hardness of your heart, but it wasn't so from the beginning. God hates divorce because of what a broken covenant does to people, families, and societies. But there are instances where God grants divorce. However, the preachers of that day made it a common no-fault divorce that was not in line with God.
The same is true with this division or stepping stone to a supposedly higher level of spirituality. From the beginning, the born-again is auto-enrolled in discipleship. The idea of a lifetime as a baby Christian was repulsive, as if changing a diaper of a capable twenty-year-old.
Jesus said to enter the kingdom of God, you must come like a child. We also must have faith as a child and humility as a child. But we are not to remain as a child in our actions.
To stay a baby Christian, you get a rebuke from Paul stating that you are fleshly and not spiritual. After years of being a believer and not a disciple, you can drink milk but not eat solid food. In Hebrews, it is written that too much milk or not maturing in our salvation will cause us to be dull of hearing or what I call lactose intolerant. If you have been saved for years, you should be teaching someone by now, but instead, many are still enrolled in elementary school, and some are infants after years of believing. What is an elementary school for the believer? Read Hebrews 6. Finally, Paul tells the Corinthians to grow up and stop being childish.
Peter gets in on the rebuke and tells believers to long for the milk of God to grow up in their salvation. And let me remind you that the two books of Peter are about suffering rightly for the Lord, not as a child’s deeds of darkness but suffering in the maturing of Christ in righteousness that was given to us in the new birth.
Jesus will one day return for a Bride without spot, wrinkle, or anything else. Jesus is not returning for a child bride. But a Bride that has come to the full stature of Jesus no longer thrown every which way with every wind of doctrines of men and demons. Jesus will not be unequally yoked. Together, growing in maturity, the church is that Bride.
Jesus also rebuked His disciples for immaturity. Next week, God willing, I will follow up with a teaching entitled Age-Appropriate Discipleship.
Sometimes, I get frustrated with theologians and apologists because of their incomplete doctrines and manmade teachings. But then I remember we only know in part by divine design. The righteous must walk by faith and not sight. We will not have a 20/20 vision while the earth and heaven are still separated. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as heaven. Until then, I am reminded that we are given love beyond knowledge, so we do not doubt His everlasting love in times of unknown trouble. And we are given peace beyond understanding so that we don't create new doctrines based on our experiences to regulate our stress rather than the eternal word of God. You may have been born-again decades ago, but know you were also automatically enrolled in discipleship if you got the memo or not. It is time to grow up in our salvation and close the false gap of two classes of saints or a stairway to heaven for those who want to go higher. Because of Jesus, there is no longer a class division between cultures, gender, or economics. We are one in Christ.
A few scriptures reference the need to mature in our salvation: 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, Hebrews 5:11-14, 1 Corinthians 13:9-11, Hebrews 6:1-1 Peter 2:1-3.