What We Will *Not* Be Asked… at the Day of Judgement

At Discipleship·org, our discipleship-first mantra views life through the lens of being disciples who make disciples. To be most fully alive is to walk with Jesus, live out the priorities we find in his life. It is loving people as Jesus loved people. But let’s not study about it and talk about it too much.

That does not make it real—we must live it out!

The single most important indicator that you understand the importance of discipleship is the evidence of your own life, which is your personal “scorecard” (if I may call it that). By that, I mean the names and faces of those people that you are discipling and the names and faces of the disciple makers whom you raised up who are now discipling others.

Can you list their names? Can you see their faces?

Too many of us talk about the importance of discipleship and disciple making, but are not doing the hard work of discipleship with current names and faces. That means they are not living in the moment with all the pleasures and pains of discipling relationships. They may describe things academically or theoretically, but their experience is not current or first-hand. It’s not their present reality.

Bobby Harrington, author of this blog, serves as Executive Director of Discipleship·org, which hosts the National Disciple Making Forum in Nashville, Tennessee—this month! Join us in Nashville October 25-26th for this life-changing event. Click here to claim your seat now.

On the Day of Judgment what will matter? Our talk won’t matter at all. The proof will be shown through the evidence of our lives and those whom we discipled. 

The Imitation of Christ was one of the first books I read when I became a disciple of Jesus at twenty years old. Thomas a Kempis wrote this class in the early 1400s. Other than the Bible, no book has been translated into more languages and doubtlessly no other devotional book has had more influence. He has many great lines in the book, but one line stands out in my memory. May it guide us all:

At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holly we have lived.

Written by Bobby Harrington

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a national platform, conference, and ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash