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There is a tendency among modern-day Christians to think of serving God as being multi-tiered with various levels of commitment available for their choosing. The Catholic church's glorification and worship of deceased saints has heavily contributed to this belief. For instance, ask someone walking down the street if they are a saint or not, and they will probably answer you with a resounding "no" because they view saints as people like Mother Theresa and popes and such. In their mind, they can be a member of a church and yet not have to live to the level of a "saint" at all. But a careful look at scripture reveals that only the "saints" will inherit eternal life. The word simply means something or someone that has become holy. If you are born again, that is God trying to make you holy. If you live for God and allow His Spirit and Word free reign in your life, then you are being made holy or pure. To God, a "saint" is not someone who has passed a vote of the Vatican after a lifetime of service nor a football team, but someone who has been filled with His Spirit, baptized in His name, and is allowing the Word of God to change their lifestyle to be more like Jesus Christ! Everyone of us, regardless of our ministerial call, had better be a saint of the one, true, living God! It does not imply that you are perfect, but that you are allowing God to change your life. The problem with viewing "sainthood" as the Catholic church does, is that it suggests that you can attend church and be saved, but really not live according to the Word of God in every area. And that is very much a false doctrine that does not find it's support anywhere in scripture!

Just like we tend to have a false impression of what it means to be a "saint," so do we view the term "disciple." Ask the average churchgoer if they are a "disciple of Christ" and they will probably think of the original twelve and say "no." Everyone has heard of one time or another about the first twelve disciples of Christ, but those twelve were never intended to be the only disciples of Christ. Jesus Christ later sent out 70 disciples. At the end of His second year of ministry, the scriptures say that "many disciples forsook Him." At the Day of Pentecost, 120 disciples of Christ were filled with the Holy Ghost. Acts chapter 6 talks about the growth of the Early Church and mentions several times that the "number of disciples greatly grew." The word "disciple" simply means "one who hears and understands." A "disciple of Christ" then is someone who "hears and understands the call and words of Christ." Of course, if you really understand something, then you will act upon it.

There are two calls of God in the average person's life; three if they are called into the five-fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teacher; Ephesians 4:11). The first call is that of salvation. It is the call of God to take care of the "sin problem" that you inherited from Adam's fall simply by being born. It is being born again of the water and the Spirit. It is a true repentance of your sins, having your sins washed away in water baptism, and then allowing God to restore that relationship within you that Adam lost in the garden by the "regeneration of the Holy Ghost." At that point in your life, you stand "a new creature in Christ Jesus" with none of your past held against you and a much brighter future. Salvation is free and costs you nothing but obedience, the sacrifice that paid for it was the cross of Calvary. Unfortunately, there is often a time gap between when someone first hears the call of salvation and their answer.

The second call is the call of discipleship. It is the call of God to make His kingdom priority in your life. To allow everything in your life to be governed by the principles in His Word. To seek each day and week and month to draw closer to Him and to allow Him to form you into a "vessel of honor" which He can use. You go from being "a new born babe in Christ" to a mature and balanced Christian who teaches others either through your word or lifestyle or both. You allow God to break you and reshape you over and over again. A good sign of a person answering the call of discipleship is when they begin to make changes in their life in order to better reach someone else or to appear consistent. Salvation may be free, but discipleship will cost you much time, effort, and even some dreams and a change in your lifestyle. Many people reach the level of answering the call of salvation but fewer answer the call of discipleship. Too many Christians try to live in that limbo between the call of salvation and the call of discipleship. They wanted to know that they have deliverance from their past sins, but they are really not ready to make God's kingdom the number one priority in their life. People who live like that struggle in living for God. Show me a Christian who is gung ho for God one week and the next week ready to throw in the towel, and I'll show you someone who has not answered the call of discipleship. The old maxim that states, "it's hard to live for God easy, and it's easy to live for God hard," is talking about those who have and have not answered this call. Frankly put, you have answered the call of discipleship when you have decided that church and God will be the priority in your life over everything else, even persecution, and when you know what you believe, why you believe it, and you are convinced of it. By it's very definition, you must understand truth to be a disciple of Christ.

Not everyone will hear the third call because it is not the will of God for everyone to enter into full-time ministerial duties. The third call is the call of leadership. I've known some men to seek spiritual leadership positions without ever answering the call to discipleship. The results are always disastrous. The call of spiritual leadership will cost you everything: your dreams, your will, your goals, your ambitions, and your life! Everything must become second place to the will of God in your life. For me, I heard and answered the call of salvation at the age of nine-years-old. I heard the call of discipleship at the age of seventeen. It was some months later that I really began to answer that second call. At eighteen, I began to hear the third call and it was really only after I turned twenty-one years-of-age that I began to seriously answer the call of spiritual leadership.

For you to make it as a Christian, you must become an active disciple of Christ. At the end of the ninth chapter of Matthew, Jesus asked the disciples to pray for laborers to be sent into the harvest. At the beginning of the tenth chapter, we find that the prayer was answered by the sending out of those whom Jesus had asked to pray! How many times do we pray for God to send someone to do something when the entire time, God wants us to be ones to do it!? When you get a burden for something in the kingdom of God to be done enough that you begin to talk about "somebody needs to do that" that is usually a pretty good sign that God wants YOU to be the one to do it. He brought it to your attention to see if you will answer the need! I remember praying "God, the church in Castroville needs a spiritual leader who will get a burden for the area and preach truth and help build a strong Apostolic church in that county." My wife and I were genuinely concerned, but it took us a little while to figure out that God was wanting to answer our prayers by sending us! For a need to be met, you must first have revelation of that need. If you feel a burden for something enough to notice a void or situation that needs somebody to make a difference, it could be that it is YOU whom God is calling to step in and make the difference!

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When Jesus gave the original twelve disciples their calling, He instructed them in the "basics" of discipleship. Matthew chapter 10 is the Lord's first instructions concerning what it means to be a disciple. These things are recorded for our benefit so that we may learn from them, and you and I must likewise answer the call of discipleship and allow God's kingdom to take priority in our lives. If that is so, then we had better understand the Lord's first instruction about discipleship, and I want to spend the remainder of this lesson focusing on what Jesus told His disciples. The lessons of discipleship in Matthew chapter 10 can be grouped into 11 basic commands of discipleship:

1. Start locally with your neighbors (Matthew 10:5-7).

The first twelve disciples were Jewish and Jesus commanded them to NOT go to the Gentiles who were unbelievers in the distant lands nor go to the Samaritans who were the Jews' hated enemies. Jesus commanded them to go first to the Jewish people who had a portion of truth but not the full revelation of what Jesus Christ had come to do.

When you become a disciple of Jesus Christ, you must also begin to reach out and make a difference in someone else's life. Don't begin by reaching out to people far away in other countries or by fighting a huge public enemy, but start with the people that you are around every week. Likewise don't try to start by winning someone from a radically different belief system like the Hindus or the Muslims, but start with people who have an open mind to Christianity, but just have not had the full revelation of what Jesus wants to do in their life yet. That was exactly where most of you were at before you came to God and those sort of people are the hungriest for truth. By learning to reach those who are closer to truth, you will learn the scriptures and skills to reach those who have further to come to God.

2. Minister to others as others have ministered to you (Matthew 10:8).

The disciples had been ministered to by Jesus through miracles, powerful teaching, and a demonstration of God's power. He commanded them to do likewise to those they were trying to reach. He said "just as freely as you have received, freely give." Most of you are here because someone got a burden for your soul and began to fast and pray. Someone taught you a Bible Study and took the time to study out and answer many of your questions. Someone was patient with you as you learned the scriptures and how to apply them to your life. Someone befriended you. Someone worshiped God in a service and unknowingly showed you how to respond to the presence of God. Someone was kind and merciful and helped you through some of the things that were holding you back. You learned about how God could move when the church came together because someone was faithful to the house of God when you came. Somebody preached to you with great anointing and identified scripturally the areas that you needed to submit to God. The reason that you are here is because someone gave of such things freely. Now, to be a disciple, you must be willing to do to others what others did to you.

The problem comes because we tend to forget how much effort and time and work it took to reach us. We forget how difficult we were and the amount of time that it took to allow God to change us. I have seen new Christians impatiently demand scriptural changes of other people, when they were given a time and a space for God to deal with them. They demand of others what was not demanded of them at that time in their life. Teach the Word and be firm in what you stand for, but also distribute the Word of God with the same kindness and patience in which you received it. And you must be willing to pray and fast until you can minister with the same anointing to which you were first ministered with. And be willing to take as much time with someone else's questions as the ministry was willing to take for you.

3. It's not about what you have, but whether or not you are available (Matthew 10:9-10).

When you first answer the call of discipleship, it is not about what you have to give or what you have accumulated. You are the item that God desires to have. Too many people never begin teaching Bible studies, or telling someone about what God can do, because they do not feel as if they have everything that they need. They feel as if they should know the scriptures more, and that they should learn to pray better, and fast longer, and worship deeper, etc... . But when God issues the call to discipleship, He is not the least concerned with what you possess as far as ability or talents or knowledge. He is simply looking for someone who is willing to be used. This is why some new converts, get the Holy Ghost and immediately begin to share what little that they know about the Word of God and yet get terrific results in reaching out and ministering to others, while there is someone who has had the Holy Ghost for years that is still making excuses on the pew why they are not bolder and more anointed. God is looking for someone just to trust Him and step out in faith.

Of course, after you have answered the call to discipleship for a time, you must learn to prepare and equip yourself if you are to go further in God. Here in Matthew chapter 10 in the middle of Jesus' second year of ministry, He told them to not pack anything. But to the same disciples at the end of His third year of ministry Jesus told them:

Those who had answered the call of discipleship over a year earlier were now commanded to pack some things and do whatever they could to get a "sword." Eventually you will reach a place in your life, where you will have to prepare yourself to go further in God, and you will have to learn to pray and fast more and to make sure that you have the "sword of the Spirit," the Word of God, with you at all times. You will eventually reach a place where you can go no further until you "study to show thyself approved." But don't wait until you have it all together to begin to reach others, or you will never get to this place!

4. Present the truth with peace, and if you are rejected, "shake off the dust from your feet" (Matthew 10:12-15).

If someone rejects your message, don't let it get you down, but "let your peace return to you." In other words, always present the truth with love and graciousness and if they turn from it, leave with love and graciousness. A true Christian should never have to argue scripture through screaming and yelling. If someone will not receive your message of truth, then "shake off the dust of your feet." In other words, move on and don't allow the experience to dampen your zeal and your convictions.

What tends to happen if we are not careful is that we start out excited about the change that God has done in our life and we go present it to someone with great enthusiasm. If they do not immediately respond as we did, we tend to get disheartened and then we do not present the truth to the next person with as much fervor or excitement and joy. What Jesus is saying is, approach every man with joy and don't allow the fact that someone doesn't want to know more about Him to dampen your spirits or cause you to get discouraged. Someone does want to know about what God has done in your life, and so let your peace and happiness come back to you and move on and don't allow any doubts and fears from your bad experience to "linger on your feet" as you walk to the next person! Remember they are not opposing you, but themselves when they reject the Word of God, because God is wanting to bless them if they would just obey His Word (II Timothy 2:25).

5. Be wise as a serpent and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16).

A dove can be stupidly simple. A serpent can be extremely cunning to a fault. We need to be balanced in our approach to our walk with God. Never assume the worst and yet realize that not everyone is perfect. Be smart enough to realize human nature for what it is and not be surprised by anything, but at the same time have faith in people and in the fact that God can change anyone.

6. Realize that when people try to attack you or smear your reputation, that God has given you an opportunity to reveal to them true Christianity (Matthew 10:17-21).

Jesus told His disciples that if they were arrested or tried in religious councils that He would be there and would speak through them for a testimony of what He can do. Jesus Christ, Himself, went through three illegal trials of religious authorities before He ever stepped a foot in a Roman court. Literally hundreds of religious leader got to hear Jesus preach because of those trials. The Apostle Paul was arrested many times and forced to go to a witness stand. Many people were saved in the Book of Acts because they first heard the preaching of Paul in such cases.

The bottom line is this: you may not ever be arrested in America because of what you believe, but when people begin to persecute you and "have it out for you" and plot against you, and talk behind your back because of your faith, then God has given you the perfect opportunity to witness to them through your words and actions what a true Christian is. The Bible talks about "heaping coals of fire" upon those who have it out for you by being nice to them. When you have been done wrong, what was your response? Was it like Jesus, who prayed for their forgiveness and for mercy to be extended to them and who turned the other cheek? Do you return blessing for the cursing that you have received as the scriptures instruct? Or do you respond to an attack with an attack of your own!? If you do, then you just missed a terrific opportunity to show your enemies how a true Christian acts! Let your actions do the talking about how true your message is!

Jesus told His disciples that the Spirit would tell them what to say in those situations. The next time, someone is really pressuring you and you want to retaliate, stop and pray and ask God for guidance. You will be surprised at how He will help you if you will resist the urge to give in to your fleshly revenge.

7. Don't give in to outside pressure but endure until the end (Matthew 10:22-33).

Salvation is not just a one time process and then you can live like you want to and you have it made. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." Not only is that true in our personal salvation, but it is true of success in the kingdom of God. Many victories are won by perseverance and simply "standing" on what you know to be truth.

We have the truth that Satan is attacking. We have the power that He craves. We have the joy that He wants to destroy. We have the answer to the lost and dying world, therefore our job is to stand fast and never waver from what we have!

If you are living sold out to God, you WILL suffer some persecution for what you believe. The key is to endure it! In Matthew 10:23, Jesus told the disciples to keep going from city to city and enduring persecution and that before they were finished, He would return to be with them again. It is the same principle in the Spirit, keep enduring and reaching out to others no matter what obstacles that you face, and Jesus will help you before you reach a place where you feel as if you can't go on any more!

8. Go beyond the influences of your family (Matthew 10:34-37).

Very few preachers teach from this verse today, but it is still just as true as when Jesus stated it. Serving Jesus will NOT bring peace in EVERY area of your life, particularly your family. As you draw closer to God, you will find that the greatest battles that you will fight will be against a family member. Because of their close contact and close kinship, family members sometimes attack true Christians the most. Eventually you will have to decide who is more important: your family or God's Word. Are you going to believe your parent's tradition or Jesus' teaching? Are you going to follow your brother's unscriptural example or will you follow Jesus' instruction? Jesus said that if you love mother or father, son or daughter more than Him, then you are "not worthy" of Him. How many people don't come to church because their mother or father or spouse or sibling doesn't approve or persecutes them? They are not a true disciple of Christ. A true disciple of Christ will not let any family member stand between them and the kingdom of God!

9. Take up your cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 10:38).

Notice that Jesus did not say that we must take up "Jesus' cross" but that we must take up "our cross." The death that Jesus died upon Calvary and upon the cross was not just for future sins, but the sins of others that had lived long before Him. That is, He died not for His own sins, but because of a burden of the past and a burden of the future. Every one of us will have our own cross which will also have the same elements. You will have to carry something with you from your past that you will never be proud of. Don't let your past, whether it be something that happened while you were growing up, a bad mistake, or a sinful lifestyle, become an excuse to not serve God. Pick up that cross and that bad reputation or old hurt and follow Him! You will find, like Jesus did, that there is someone near you to help you bear it and who will also be saved in the process!

Your own cross will also have to do with a burden of the future. God will give you a dream or a goal to accomplish and you must live everyday with that goal, no matter how far off it seems to be, in front of you. Pick up the burden and follow Him and pay the price that it will take to see that dream come to pass! To truly be a disciple of Christ, we must be willing to take up our own cross, both a burden of the past and of the future and follow Him!

10. Make the will of God and His kingdom priority in your life (Matthew 10:39).

If your point of living after answering the call of discipleship becomes your priorities and the things of this world, then you will eventually lose out on eternal life. But if you will lose your own will and motives and sell out to the things of God, God will bless you with both eternal life and physical blessings. Jesus taught:

In other words, don't be so concerned with having things in the world that you neglect the kingdom of God. Put God first, and all of those things will be given to you. Verse 34 simply means "not to worry about the things of the future and only worry about the situation that you can effect right now." I like the following version of this scripture:

Remember the following promise from God:

11. Take care of the small things and God will reward you (Matthew 10:40-42).

Maybe all of this seems a huge task, and it truly is the task of a lifetime, but Jesus gives us a practical starting place: start in being faithful in the small things. If you will tithe on the dollar, then you will be able to tithe on the thousands of dollars. And if God can trust you to do things His way with a dollar, then He will later be able to trust you with a thousand dollars. If you will forgive over the little things, then when the large things come, forgiveness will be second nature. If you will be honest in little everyday matters, then you will not be deceitful when large matters are placed under your care. How you handle the small things in your life will determine whether or not you are a success at the big things. Be faithful to church when no one is coming with you and then you will be faithful when someone you care about attends. Be faithful in prayer on the good days, and you will not feel awkward praying in the bad times. Worship Jesus when you feel good, and you will more easily be able to put on the garment of praise during a trial. Want to reach out to someone? Why not start out with a child or someone who is down and out on their luck? Jesus concluded His grand instructions on discipleship with a humble example:

He told His disciples that the best way that they could start ministry was by giving a cup of water to a small child. In other words, make yourself servant to the least among you. Start serving others in the church and helping them, then when it comes to an unbeliever, helping will be second nature. Jesus taught us that serving others was the world's highest calling, because when you selflessly serve others, you will be rewarded by God! And that is what answering the call of discipleship is all about: not pleasing men or being popular but living our lives so that we please God above everything else!

The call of discipleship may cost you a lot of time and effort and strength, but the rewards that will be gained will be far greater than any sacrifice that you have to make. I am convinced of that and that is why I am trying to fulfill Jesus' call in my own life.