“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;” (John 8:31). It seems almost stupidly simple but the truth is that the only way for us to stop being disciples of Christ is... to stop being His disciples. What I mean by that is we are completely in control of whether or not we want to be Christ's disciples. We may have addictions and pet sins and weaknesses of the flesh. We may struggle minute by minute with pride or stubbornness or jealousy or short tempers. We may be too poor to pay our tithing, or too stressed to give up smoking, or too in love with sports or television programs or Sunday Morning brunch to fully keep the Sabbath day holy. But what does Christ tell us is necessary for us to be His disciples? That we continue in His word. When we try our very best to be charitable and empathetic and patient and last ten whole minutes before we totally lose it and yell at someone who is driving us crazy, what do we do? We continue on and try to go another ten minutes. If we quit drinking a thousand different times and once again fall off the wagon, what do we do? We continue on and climb right back up on the wagon. Being a disciple has never been about the destination. It's always been about the journey. Christ never said meet me at such and such a place and then you can be my disciple. He said, Follow me. Whether we are an inch or a light-year from our final destination, as long as we are following Him and continuing His word, then we are His disciples indeed. I hope that we will all continue on no matter what setbacks we face so that we can say with confidence and truth that we are disciples of Christ.
