Article
Our Need for Christ and True Discipleship
December 5, 2025
From Spiritual Death to Abundant Life in Christ
I want to talk to you today about the world's true need for Christ and what it means to be one of His disciples. To explain this, we need to go back to the beginning and understand why humanity needed a Savior.
The Beginning: Creation and the Fall
In the beginning, God created all things and called it good (Genesis 1:31). He placed Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them the opportunity to continue in relationship with Him by obeying the guidelines He laid out for them. There was one tree in this garden named the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Scripture shows us in Genesis chapter 3 that Eve looked at the fruit and saw that it was good for food. She ate, and then she gave some to her husband Adam, and he ate as well (Genesis 3:6). This is the moment that Adam and Eve died spiritually. In the Hebrew text of Genesis, it's actually the word for "die die." The implication here is that they died spiritually, meaning they were no longer in right standing with God.
This is how sin entered into humanity's bloodline. It started from Adam, and from Adam to Christ, death reigned and there was no victory over the issue of sin (Romans 5:12-14). Sin can be defined in different ways, but ultimately it started with rebellion against what God had said.
The Need for a Savior
Because all of humanity was corrupted by sin, there was a need for a Savior, and this is where Jesus comes into the picture. What many people fail to realize is that Jesus came to redeem us on a spiritual level, not just a physical one.
In the Old Testament, God gave His people laws, but these laws were not meant to save anybody. They were meant to show God's people that salvation was not going to be by works but by faith (Romans 3:20, Galatians 3:24). This is why we see that as Jesus went to the cross, He suffered for our transgressions and our sin (Isaiah 53:5).
Salvation by Faith Alone
The way to receive the forgiveness that God has made available to us is by faith, by believing that Jesus took your sin and your punishment on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). By this you are saved in your spirit. Your spirit is born again, it is one with God's Spirit, and you are going to heaven. But it is not by your works, it's not by any human intervention. It's only by your faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9-10).
Without Jesus, there would be nobody in right standing with God. You are reconciled to God through your faith in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:18). He broke down the wall of separation between us and God, and now Scripture says that we have full access to God Himself (Ephesians 2:14, Hebrews 4:16).
The Call to Discipleship
Once a person receives this salvation, they begin to live an entirely new life because their life is in Christ. It is no longer their own (Galatians 2:20). As you develop your relationship with Him, you're going to see God change you from the inside out.
What many people miss is the need for discipleship. Discipleship can really be defined as discipline in the way of Christ. Jesus says, "If you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed" (John 8:31). So as believers, we choose to follow the words of Jesus and the entire Bible as His Word to become true disciples.
Renewing Your Mind
While our spirits are made new and born again, what we must understand is that our minds are still corrupted with the ways of thinking from this world. In Romans 12:2, Scripture calls us to renew our minds and not be conformed to the world: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
So many people who accept Christ don't continue understanding His ways in their minds, and because of this, they still live like the world. They still live like an unbeliever. However, we are called to live a separated life, and your life should look different than that of an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:17, 1 Peter 2:9).
As we renew our minds to the Word of God, we realize that we are aligning with His wisdom, His power, and His grace. But if we do not continue to discipline ourselves in the way of Christ and get to know who we now are in Him, we often misunderstand who God is and what He's trying to do in our lives and the lives around us. This is simply because we only see things through our human perspective, through the world's perspective.
Walking in Higher Understanding
If we want to truly understand what it means when the Lord says His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9), we have to read His Word, we have to meditate on His Word, and we have to walk in His Word.
As you do these things, your mind begins agreeing with who you are in the spirit. You see, you are a righteous person by what Jesus did on the cross. You are in right standing with God (2 Corinthians 5:21). But if your mind is still operating how the world operates, then it's in contradiction to the spirit.
The Power of Agreement
As we renew our minds, our soul begins to agree with our spirit, and that's where breakthrough is. That's where change is. This allows the Spirit of God to be moving in your life again in these areas that you're renewing your mind in.
Many people think that God will just do things in your life without you having to do a single thing. But unless we have faith to receive things, this limits us from receiving what God has for us. God has love, joy, peace, power, and grace, all these things that He's placed inside of us (Galatians 5:22-23). But many times we never receive it nor walk in it because we don't believe it. Our minds are still thinking like the world, and our minds don't understand the mind of God nor what He's given us.
Becoming Boundless in Christ
But as we discipline ourselves in renewing our minds, we begin agreeing with who God has called us to be. You truly become boundless. You're no longer bound to just this world, sin, poverty, or sickness. You're free from all those things because you are in Christ (John 8:36, 2 Corinthians 3:17). But you must understand that and begin agreeing with what His Word says and what He's put in you by renewing your mind to Scripture.
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