Understanding about Discipleship in today’s church ranges from it being optional or more about knowledge of the Bible or behavior modification or a linear system of progression to maturity. I loved Jonathan Dodson’s book Gospel Centered Discipleship as it forces us back to discipleship being about Jesus. This will be a good read for anyone strategizing in churches to make disciples. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes that have stuck with me since reading this book this summer:

• Jesus is not merely the start and standard for salvation, but…the beginning, middle, and end of my salvation.
• The gospel is necessary for getting right & doing right w/God, for salvation & sanctification.
• Disciple is an identity; everything else is a role.
• The gospel makes all-encompassing demands, and what the gospel demands, it supplies.
• Jesus, alone, should take the center place in our lives, not our Bible Reading, evangelism, character, or effort to be different or spiritual.
• … the gospel that makes disciples is the very same gospel that matures disciples.
• The gospel frees us from running ragged trying to please God with holiness and social justice, because Jesus has pleased God for us & secured the mission.
• … our approval before God rests, not on our performance but on the performance of Jesus.
• God’s forgiveness frees us from judgement, not from obedience.
• Repentance is not a one time act to get us into heaven, but an entire way of life to maintain Christian joy.
• Jesus didn’t die & rise to rapture individual disciples, but to make a community that reflects his glory through dependence on one another.
• The challenge of loving others as we love ourselves confronts our deep-down idolatries. It exposes our functional worship of individual privacy, convenience, & comfort.

Follow the Gospel Centered Disicpleship blog as well for great thinking on discipleship and life in Christ.