Being a Disciple of Jesus Christ : Luke 10-14

Luke 10:38-42; Luke 11:1-13; Luke 12:13-40; Luke 13:23-24; Luke 14:16-33

What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ?

Receive Him in your house

Hear His word

Pray earnestly

Seek Him

Take heed and do not covet

Do not doubt

Fear not

Watch for Him

Give to the poor

What is the cost of following the Savior?

Give all we have to the Savior -not just temporal things

Patience

One of the teachings, I need to work on is praying earnestly.  My family is pretty good at having prayer at meals and before going to bed.  I need to work on really communicating with God through my personal prayers.  In Luke 11:15-13 it talks about the parable of the friend at midnight.  I found this interesting.  When the neighbor has consistently asked with a real need, he complies.  How often do we sorta pray and ask for things or blessings?  Do we fervently pray with a righteous desire?  When we don't get what we need or want right away, do we give up?  I think as I work on this my testimony will grow and I will become closer to the Savior.  I will receive blessings that I may not have received because I wasn't patient enough.

The ultimate requirement to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to follow Him in everything.  We must give all we have, including our time.  This does not mean to be unwise in giving away all our money and not supporting our families.  This does not mean to give all of our time to the church to the detriment of our jobs and families.  We can not be selfish with our time and money.  Sometimes the sacrifice hurts.  We are a covenant people and have covenanted to give all we have to the Savior.  We need to support our family members in callings, we need to find acts of service in our community and in our church congregations.  We need to live with in our means so that when the need arises, we can help.  

We must endure to the end.  We can not be a disciple of Christ for just a little bit.  We must follow the Savior completely for our whole life.  I know we get tired and much is required.  There have been times when I just want a break and to quit for a little bit.  We can not fall into that trap.  We must not run faster than we have the ability but we can not quit either.  We need to wisely balance our resources so that we can endure to the end.