If you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ, will you go to heaven? We’ve been talking about discipleship and some of the more important points to consider about what Jesus said about discipleship.

What We’ve Examined About Discipleship So Far

We’ve looked at the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19-20), where Jesus said, “Go make disciples,” and He helps to define disciples by saying, “teach them to obey all that I commanded you, after you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.

We looked at John 8 where He told a bunch of believers, “if you are truly My disciples you’ll abide in My word and you’ll progressively be set free from sin.”

Then we looked at Luke 14 where Jesus laid down three requirements to be His disciple. One of which is we have to hate our loved ones. We talked about that. Another one is that we have to be willing to embrace hardship and suffering for His sake, take up our cross. And thirdly, have to give up all our possessions.

And you see that with the people in the Book of Acts, again, there’s no dichotomy of believers and disciples. No, it just talks about the disciples and all those who believed were disciples. And it affected what they did with their money. They began caring for widows. And people who had a lot started liquidating their assets to meet pressing needs of those within the body of Christ.

And so, these are things to be thinking about as we consider, am I a disciple?

If You’re Not a Disciple of Jesus Christ, Will You Go To Heaven?

Now the question that I posed at the beginning of this episode is, “If you’re not a disciple of Christ, will you go to Heaven”? Because some people think, “Well, I’m not a disciple of Christ, I’m a believer in Jesus.”

I think we’ve pretty well proven that disciples and believers are one in the same. If you’re not a disciple, you’re not really a believer. So to answer the question that I posed at the beginning of this episode, the answer is “no”.

If you’re not a disciple of Christ, you’re not on the road to heaven. You’re a goat who thinks that he or she is a sheep.

“ If you’re not a disciple of Christ, you’re not on the road to Heaven. —DAVID SERVANT

A Lesson From Salt

So, let’s look at the last thing that Jesus said in Luke 14. After He lists these three requirements to be His disciple, He finishes out what He says with these two very significant verses that maybe are a little bit difficult for us to grasp, but I think we can grasp them.

Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. – Luke 14:34-35

“Therefore, salt is good.” Well, okay I agree with that. Do you agree with that? Salt is good. Now, we’re used to salt pretty much as a seasoning; sprinkle that salt on the steak!

But in Jesus’ day, salt wasn’t so much of a seasoning as it was a preservative. You rub salt on the meat and that keeps it from rotting, because you don’t have refrigeration. So this is the best they could do at that time.

So salt is good. You better believe it’s good! It’s preserving a lot of things, although making those things taste pretty salty.

The Impossibility of Salt Not Being Salty

Then Jesus says, “but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?”

Now you could say “Well, wait a second David, he’s talking about seasoning here.” Well yes, because you can tell salt is salt by its taste. It has a seasoned flavor, right? Sure.

So if you put your finger in a little pile of salt there and stick a little on your tongue, if it doesn’t taste salty, there’s a pretty good chance it’s not salt. Right? That’s the conclusion you’d come to.

And I’ve never heard of salt being “unsalty”. And maybe there’s an explanation for something like that in Jesus’ day. Maybe that was some kind of a seasoning that had salt in it and they just called it salt, and on occasion salt wasn’t mixed with the other stuff and so the seasoning became or was “unsalty”. I don’t know. It doesn’t really make a lot of difference for the sake of our understanding of what He’s saying here.

But, because salt itself cannot become tasteless, if it doesn’t have the salty taste, it’s not salt. And maybe that is the point. The impossibility of salt not being salty.

If You’re a Believer in Christ, There Will Be Evidence

Because if you’re a believer, if you’re a disciple of Jesus Christ, there’s going to be absolute evidence for it. You’re going to fit what Jesus listed as what characterizes a disciple.

This is a person that loves Jesus supremely, even more than their loved ones. This is a person who’s willing to embrace suffering and does sacrifice for His sake. This is a person whose check book reflects that they are a disciple of Christ. If you don’t have that, the salt isn’t salty. It really isn’t salt, it’s pseudo-salt.

If We’re Not Disciples, We’re Good for Nothing

“If even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile.”

And I don’t understand why you’d be putting salt in either soil or a manure pile, but there must have been some reason in Jesus’ day. But, again, we don’t have to understand that. (And if you do understand that, please write to me and tell me. I’d love to learn that myself.)

It’s useless for these purposes, it’s not good for anything. It’s even these purposes it’s useless for. It’s thrown out. It’s good for nothing, it has no value whatsoever. It’s worthless.

Can you understand what Jesus is saying here? That if we are not His disciples, we’re good for nothing. “Throw it out.” It serves no use to God.

Something Even the Devil Believes

So you can see the huge danger there is when folks buy into the lie that you can be a believer in Jesus and not be His disciple. Oh my goodness, this is so sobering.

And you have those people whom Jesus warned about in the future judgment of the sheep and the goats (see Matthew 25:31-46) who say, “Lord, Lord when did we see You hungry or thirsty and not feed You or give You drink? When did we see You naked and not clothe You? When did we see You sick and in prison, and didn’t visit You? Because if we had seen you Lord, we’d have done it. We care about You.”

“Depart from Me, I never knew you. You didn’t do it to the least of these, it shows you didn’t care about me. You’re good for nothing.”

Jesus wants disciples. And I would say that’s the major problem in the body of Christ today. We’ve got a lot of people who have head knowledge, and they think it’s saving faith. Or they acknowledge some truth, some theological truth, like Jesus died for everyone’s sins. But the Devil believes that! That’s not it. It’s Jesus. I believe Jesus is Lord. And so I’ve repented and every day I take up my cross and I try to follow Him.

Okay, thanks so much for joining me on this little lesson. God bless you.

The post If You Are Not a Disciple of Jesus Christ, Will You Go to Heaven? appeared first on David Servant.

What do disciples of Jesus do with their money? For the past few episodes, we’ve been talking about the very important subject of discipleship, what it means to be a disciple.

Hopefully, you’re in full agreement with me that there are no two categories of Christians, believers and disciples. That, in fact, all true believers in Jesus are disciples. Because if you believe in Jesus, you’re going to follow and obey Him and be willing to pay whatever price that you have to in order to successfully follow Him.

Counting the Cost of Being a Disciple of Jesus Christ

Although His commands are not burdensome (see 1 John 5:3) and His yoke is easy and His burden is light (see Matthew 11:30), that’s primarily because He’s given us the Holy Spirit to help us bear the burden.

And fitting that in with the rest of the Scripture, sometimes, there’s a huge price to pay for following Jesus. There have been millions of people who have suffered the ultimate for following Christ. They gave their lives.

But those of us who haven’t necessarily had to give our lives, it’s cost us friendships, it’s cost us family members because we love Jesus the most. And if our family doesn’t like Jesus, they’re not going to like us anymore either.

Some of us, it’s cost us our job because we were unwilling to do something unethical that was required of us in order to be employed at a certain place.

What About Our Money?

It certainly has cost every disciple money, and why do I say that? Well, I say that because that’s one of the requirements to be a disciple. Everything comes under Christ’s Lordship, including all money and all possessions.

We’ve been reading in Luke 14, Jesus’ three requirements to become His disciple. One is you’ve got to hate your loved ones. The second one is that you’ve got to carry your cross. I believe that’s symbolic for being willing to embrace suffering.

“ Everything comes under Christ’s Lordship, including all money and all possessions. —DAVID SERVANT

What Jesus Taught About True Discipleship

Jesus continues in Luke 14 about the whole idea of counting the cost,

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. – vv. 28-32

The whole point of those two illustrations that Jesus gave were simply, don’t start unless you’re willing to see it through to the end. Don’t get into the battle if you don’t think that you can win. Count the cost.

When evangelists call people to make quickie decisions for Jesus and pray a little sinner’s prayer, they’re really doing them a great disservice. They ought to be telling them to consider, “If you decide to follow Christ, here are what could be the consequences. Because here’s what Jesus said that it takes to be His disciple.”

The Financial Cost of Following Christ

Now, let’s continue. Because I don’t want to forget what we were talking about, the whole idea of our money. In verse 33, Jesus says,

So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

We have to love Jesus more than our loved ones, more than our own life, more than our comfort and convenience. And now, last, we have to love Jesus more than our possessions. As obedient disciples, everything that we thought we owned, now He owns. And we have to listen to Him as to what to do with it.

Well, we know, of course, that Jesus has things for us to do with our money. And one of those, of course, is to care for the “least of these”.

Caring for the “Least of These”

Remember in Matthew 25 where Jesus talked about the future judgment of the sheep and the goats? The very thing that determined whether or not people were saved and were welcomed into the Kingdom or unsaved and cast into hell was, did they sacrifice their time and their resources for the least of these, Whom Jesus defined as those who were suffering within His body. People who didn’t have food or clothing or water, people who were sick, people who were imprisoned, and so forth.

There’s no escaping this. No, no escaping this. Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Well, you can answer that question by answering this question: does my checkbook reflect that I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Because nobody can say to you, God requires this percentage and no more or no less. I mean, some people try to focus in on the tithe, but Jesus said, “Don’t lay up treasures on this earth” (see Matthew 6:19-20). A true disciple is trying to lay up little on this earth and a lot in Heaven because that’s what Jesus taught. That’s what He commanded. Don’t lay up treasures on earth. Lay them up in Heaven.

Wrestling With Jesus’ Teachings on Money and Possessions Individually

Everybody has to wrestle with this individually. I know that, and so I’m not going to set any rules or regulations or percentages or tell you what kind of a car you can or cannot drive. Or how big of a house or that type of thing.

But if this is not a part of your Christianity, that is, stewardship…

Which I want to submit to you, honesty, it’s not part of a lot of people’s Christianity. They don’t ever care. They never talk about caring for the poor within the body of Christ. And their checkbook doesn’t reflect that they care.

Jesus said, “When you do it to the least of these, my brethren, you’ll do it unto me.” And to the goats, He said, “You didn’t do it for me, and you didn’t do it for the least of these, so you didn’t do it for me.”

This is our opportunity to show our love for Jesus by loving the “least of these” in whom He is dwelling. Suffering brothers and sisters in Christ.

Believing in “Bible Jesus”

You can see, I hope, from these Little Lessons that a lot of people who think that they’re believers in Jesus aren’t really believers in Jesus. They’re believers in some kind of Jesus, but not in “Bible Jesus”. Because if they believed in “Bible Jesus”, they’d be disciples of Jesus, and it’d be reflected by their lives and what they do with their time and their money and so forth.

Thank you so much for joining me. Good things to think about. Take a look yourself at Luke 14:25-35, and our next lesson, we’ll finish this out. God bless.

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