How can you identify a true follower of Christ?

"Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Mt. 28:18-20).

Jesus came to this earth to be an example. He came here to show us the Father. He came here to take our sins in His own body on the cross and He came to destroy the works of the devil. And while He went about His ministry, along the way He also gathered up people to follow Him—called disciples.

Jesus was popular. "Large crowds were traveling with Jesus" (Lk. 14:25). Yet He told them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26). He also said, "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:33).

He turned to the crowds that were following Him and three times He said to them, ". . . cannot be My disciple," ". . . cannot be My disciple," ". . . cannot be My disciple." It's as if He said, "I am not looking for crowds; I'm looking for disciples."

How do you recognize a disciple? What does he look like? What are his characteristics? Are you a disciple? Am I a disciple?

I have studied seven or eight passages in Scripture having to do with the characteristics of a disciple. They can conveniently be boiled down to three marks of discipleship. When you see these three, you have a disciple.

Identified with Christ

The first mark of a disciple is that he is someone who is identified with the person of Jesus Christ—someone who will openly admit that he belongs to Christ.

"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved" (Ro. 10:9-10). An open identification with Jesus Christ. Jesus promised, "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven" (Mt. 10:32). But He also warned, "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels" (Mk. 8:38).

Some years ago when I was with the Billy Graham team in a crusade, a businessman came forward one night and received Christ. The following Sunday night he went to a church that he sometimes attended. After the service he walked up to one of the leading elders in this church and told him, "I was at the Billy Graham meeting last week out at the ball park. I went forward and received Christ."

"I heard about it and I am delighted," the elder replied.

Then the businessman asked the elder, "How long have you and I been associated in business?"

"About twenty-three years, I think."

"Have you known Christ as your Savior all those years?" the man asked the elder.

"Yes, I have," he answered.

"Well, I don't remember your ever speaking to me about Christ during those years," the man said. The elder hung his head, and the man continued, "I have thought highly of you. In fact, I thought so highly of you that I felt if anyone could be as fine a man as you and not be a Christian, then I didn't have to be a Christian either."

This elder had lived a good life before his friend, but he had not taken the added step of openly identifying with the One who enabled him to live that kind of life.

When Jesus asks you to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Him, what do you think it means? Whatever else it means, I think it means to be identified with Christ, not only when it's popular but when it's unpopular. Not only when it's the thing to do but when it seems as if it's not the thing to do.

One morning I spoke to the SWAP (Salesmen With A Purpose) Club in Colorado Springs. They call in various speakers to tell how selling applies to their business. I spoke on how it applies to the gospel. In the process I explained the gospel. After I had spoken, they introduced the guests. One of them was Will Perkins, a Plymouth dealer. It was his first time there. When he was introduced he stood and said, "Gentlemen, two years ago I heard a presentation similar to the one you heard this noon. I bought it, and it has changed my life." Then he sat down. I thought to myself, How many Christians would have taken that little opportunity to identify themselves with the person of Jesus Christ?

Obedient to the Word

A disciple is not only a believer who is visibly identified with the person of Christ, he is also obedient to the Word of Christ—to the Scriptures. "Go and make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples" (Jn. 8:31). If you observe it and apply it to your life, then you are My disciples.

Obedience is necessary also for stability. The greatest sermon ever preached was the Sermon on the Mount. And notice how Jesus concluded it. He said, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash" (Mt. 7:24-27).

What made the difference between the wise man and the foolish man? It wasn't knowledge, because they both heard the same sermon. They went to the same conference; they had the same knowledge. They both heard the Word. Not only that, they had the same circumstances. It says that the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon the house of the wise man as well as the foolish man. The circumstances were the same. One couldn't say, "Well, you don't know how tough it is where I come from." "Well, you don't know what kind of a family life I've got." "You don't know how I suffer down at work." It wasn't their circumstances that made the difference. One thing made the difference between wisdom and foolishness. One obeyed the Word; the other one did not.

Jesus said, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (Jn. 14:21). What does that mean? It means Jesus will make Himself real to him. To whom? To the one who has His Word and keeps it.

After Moses died, Joshua had the job of taking three million people into the Promised Land. That included women, children, and livestock. God gave him some instructions. You'd think the Lord would say, "Now, look, here's how you'd handle this problem, here's how you do this, here's how you do that." But, no. He said, "Joshua, one thing above all else is going to take a lot of courage—and it's not leading all these people and facing all the enemies that are in the land. That isn't what's going to take courage." But, "Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you" (Josh. 1:7).

You may think it doesn't take courage to be obedient to the Word of God. But I wonder how obedient we really are to the Word. We live in a Christ-rejecting world, and anyone who is going to live in obedience to this Book is going to come into conflict with it. That's how you recognize a disciple. He does more than hear the Word. He puts into practice what he's heard.

Fruitful for Christ

So a disciple is one who is openly identified with the person of Christ. Second, he is obedient to the Word of Christ. And third, he is bearing fruit in the work of Christ. "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples" (Jn. 15:8).

Now it seems to me that there are two kinds of fruit here. First, the fruit of character, the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). And second, there's fruit by way of influencing the lives of others for Christ. "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last" (Jn. 15:16).

Jesus said: "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' " (Mt. 7:22-23).

We get so carried away with the spectacular that we think the spectacular is the supreme evidence that we are real disciples or Spirit-filled. But the real evidence is shown in our character—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

I've heard it said that the Apostle Paul before he was converted would pray something like this every day: "God, I thank You that I am not a Gentile, that I am not a slave, and that I am not a woman." But look at how God changed his attitude. In his first letter he wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Here is evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in the way of character.

This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It includes one's whole attitude, outlook, character, and relationship to others. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you can work great miracles? No. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (Jn. 13:35).

When Jesus talked about His ministry and what He came to do, He quoted from Is. 61:1-3, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners . . . and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."

Take this world in which we live with all of its glitter, its tinsel, and its veneer. Strip all of this away, and how would you characterize the real world underneath? Brokenhearted, captive, bound, anxious, sad, depressed.

A disciple is one who gets involved in that kind of world, who is bearing fruit in the work of Christ. He shows the fruit of the Spirit in a Christlike character.

The Greatest Is Love

What did Jesus say was the greatest identifying mark of all in a disciple? Love. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples"—if you do what? "If you love one another."

I saw a television special about a man named James Emory Bond. He was a former truck driver, a black man then in his seventies.

He said that when he was a young fellow growing up on the edge of Baltimore, the white boys would throw rocks at him as he was on his way to school. He began to hate white people.

One morning when he saw the milk truck go by, he thought how nice it would be if he could just have a little milk before he went to work in the morning.

He stopped the milkman, who was a white man, one day and asked him if he would leave him a quart of milk. He said, "No, I don't deliver milk to niggers."

"So," Bond said, "I called up the milk company, and I asked the man I talked with if this was true, that they didn't give milk to black people. He said, 'No, that's not right. We do deliver milk to black people, and we'll see that he delivers the milk.'

"So," he said, "the milk came, a quart each morning. Several weeks went by and I realized that he wasn't leaving me a bill, and I wanted to pay for it. So I stopped him one morning and said, 'I want you to give me a bill so I can pay for this.' And the milkman said, 'I don't take money from niggers.' So I said, 'Well, I've got to pay you, you've just got to let me pay you.'

"'Well,' the milkman said, 'tell you what you do. You put the money on the fence post.'"

James Emory Bond said, "I thought I'd have a little fun with him, so I said, 'Now I won't feel like I paid you unless I put it in your hand.' 'Nossir,' he said, 'put it on the post.' So I said, 'OK.' And I put it on the post. When the milkman reached out to take the change, I just laid my hand on top of his. And he jerked it away."

Then he said, "Later on, one of God's servants by the name of Billy Sunday came to our town, and he told how Jesus Christ died on the cross to take away man's sin and his enmity of heart toward his fellowman. As I heard that, I realized that I needed this, and I walked the sawdust trail. And you know, God took the hate out of my heart for the white man. He put love there."

Apparently a few days later, unknown to him, the milkman went to hear Billy Sunday. He went forward in the meeting, received Christ, and a couple days later pulled up in front of James Emory Bond's little place. With tears streaming down his face, he apologized for the way he had treated him. And this dear old black man said, "I have loved him, and he has loved me ever since."

Now that's what discipleship means. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." When we begin to see more disciples sprinkled around America and around the world, what a difference it will make! Real genuine disciples who will turn the world upside down. There are many already, and we ought to be praying for them.

But not only is there the fruit of Christlike character, but also the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of others. Jesus said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last" (Jn. 15:16).

Go and bear fruit. Paul wrote to the Romans of his desire, "that I might have a harvest among you" (Ro. 1:13). I think he meant lives influenced for Christ.

There's no better time to become a disciple than right now. Deep down in our hearts—that's where real business is done with God—we must determine that by God's grace and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will be true followers of Jesus Christ.

How can we know we are true disciples? By answering these questions.

Am I willing to be openly identified with the person of Jesus Christ?

Am I seeking to be obedient to the Word of Christ in my everyday life?

Am I bearing fruit in the work of Christ—by way of Christlike character and by influencing the lives of others?

I want to be a disciple. I want to have these marks and characteristics in my life. The only thing I'd like to do beyond that is to help make disciples and to get them to help make others. That's what Jesus wants done. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations."

© Copyright 2005 Smalley Relationship Center

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