I Am a Disciple of Christ
Not a label I wear, but a life I have given. To be His disciple is to follow, to obey, to love, and at last to become like Him.
Before any argument is made, any objection answered, or any doctrine defended, there is a confession that comes first and outranks them all: I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. Everything a Latter-day Saint believes, defends, and hopes for begins there. The word matters. A “disciple” — in the Greek of the New Testament, mathētēs — is not merely an admirer or a member of a club. It is a learner who follows, an apprentice who has bound himself to a master in order to be remade in his image. Discipleship is not a feeling about Christ. It is a direction of the whole life toward Him.
Discipleship Is Doing, Not Saying
The Lord drew the line Himself, and He drew it at action. A disciple is known not by what he professes but by what he does:
“He that receiveth my law and doeth it, the same is my disciple; and he that saith he receiveth it and doeth it not, the same is not my disciple, and shall be cast out from among you.”
This is the same standard the Savior set in His mortal ministry: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21). “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The disciple is the one who hears the word and then moves — whose belief has hands and feet.
So to call myself a disciple is to make myself accountable. It is to say: measure me by my obedience, not my announcements.
I Have Taken His Name Upon Me
Discipleship in the Restoration is sealed by covenant. At the waters of baptism I did not merely signal a private opinion; I entered an everlasting agreement to take upon me the name of Christ and to live as one who bears it. Alma spelled out exactly what that covenant means at the Waters of Mormon:
“…as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens… and are willing to mourn with those that mourn… and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places…”
That is the job description of a disciple: bear burdens, mourn with the mourning, comfort the comfortless, and stand as a witness of God everywhere and always. Each week at the sacrament I renew it — promising again to remember Him, to keep His commandments, and to always have His Spirit to be with me. Discipleship, for a Latter-day Saint, is not a one-time decision. It is a covenant renewed across a lifetime.
I wear His name the way a son wears his father’s — not as decoration, but as identity and obligation.
The Cost — And Why I Pay It Gladly
Christ never disguised the price of following Him. He named it plainly, and He asked that it be counted before it is paid:
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
“Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27) — and then, lest anyone follow on impulse, He told the parable of the man who counts the cost before he builds the tower (Luke 14:28–33). Discipleship is the opposite of cheap grace. It asks for the denial of self, the daily cross, the willingness to set Him above comfort, reputation, appetite, and even family loyalty when they compete with Him.
And the disciple pays it gladly — because he has weighed what he gives against what he gains, and found the trade overwhelming. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). I surrender what I cannot keep to gain what I cannot lose.
Ready to Suffer — and to Give an Answer
Because the disciple follows a crucified Lord, he is not surprised when righteousness costs him something. Peter — who once denied his Master and later died for Him — taught the disciples to expect the cost and to meet it with a steady heart and a ready word. “Who is he that will harm you,” he asks, “if ye be followers of that which is good?” (1 Peter 3:13) — and then:
“But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror… But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience… For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.”
Two charges to the disciple sit in that passage, and a Latter-day Saint embraces both. First, suffer for righteousness’ sake without fear — it is better to suffer for well-doing than to prosper by evil-doing, and the suffering of the righteous is counted a blessing, not a defeat. Second, be ready always to give an answer — the Greek is apologia, a reasoned defense — for “the hope that is in you,” offered “with meekness” and out of “a good conscience.” To be His disciple is to be prepared both to explain the hope and, if it comes to it, to suffer for it — gently, honestly, unafraid.
And the pattern for both is Christ Himself: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The Just One suffered for the unjust to bring us home; the disciple, following after Him, is willing in his small measure to suffer for what is just — and to give, with meekness, the reason why.
The Mark of a Disciple Is Love
When the Lord named the one sign by which the world would recognize His followers, He did not name doctrine, eloquence, or zeal. He named love:
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you… By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Love is the proof and the fruit. “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8). When the risen Christ restored Peter, He did not ask him to recite a creed; three times He asked, “Lovest thou me?” — and three times answered, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:16–17). To love Him is to serve His sheep. Discipleship that does not reach the hungry, the grieving, and the lost is discipleship in name only.
So I ask to be known not by how well I argue, but by how I love — in my home, in my ward, and toward the stranger who will never know my name.
A Disciple Continues
Discipleship is not measured by a single bright moment of belief but by endurance in the word over a lifetime:
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
“Disciples indeed” — the genuine article — are those who continue. Nephi taught the same path: after entering by baptism, one must “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men… feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end” (2 Nephi 31:20). The disciple is not someone who once decided to follow. He is someone who is following still, today, and intends to be found following at the end.
The End of Discipleship Is to Become Like Him
Why follow a master at all? Because the apprentice is meant to become like the one he follows. “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). This is the breathtaking purpose at the heart of discipleship — not merely to be forgiven by Christ, but to be transformed into His likeness. When He appeared to the Nephites, He asked the question that defines the whole journey, and then answered it with Himself:
“…what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”
This is the hope John held out — and notice that the hope is not idle; it purifies:
“…when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”
To truly hope to be like Him is already to begin becoming like Him — the hope reaches down into the daily life and cleanses it. It is the prize Moroni pleaded for: that through the grace and love of Christ “we may be purified even as he is pure” and “become the sons of God… that we may have this hope” (Moroni 7:48). The disciple follows the Master because the Master is also the destination.
And none of it is earned alone. The transformation is the work of His grace upon a willing soul — “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him… that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:32). I bring the willingness; He supplies the power.
My Witness
So when someone asks what I am, the truest answer is not a denomination or a debate position. It is this: I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I have taken His name upon me. I am trying, and failing, and repenting, and trying again, to do what He said and to love as He loved. I mean to continue in His word until the end, and I stake my whole hope on becoming, by His grace, even as He is.
That is what every argument on this site is finally for — the answer Peter said to always be ready to give, the reason of the hope that is in me — not to win a point, but to clear the way to Him. “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ… that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26).
He lives. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And I have given Him my life. I am His disciple.
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