[Darris McNeely] How does one come to Christ and become a follower of Jesus Christ or in other word, His disciple? This was a question put to us recently by one of our Beyond Today viewers and readers. And it's a legitimate question. It's actually a very good question. And in many ways, it strikes right to the heart of our message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of God. How does one come to Christ and follow Him?

Let's look at a number of Scriptures. I wanna begin today by having his turn to John 17, the prayer that Jesus gave the night that He was arrested before His death, and His crucifixion. He was in agony in the garden and He was making this heartfelt prayer to the Father. And in chapter 17:3, He makes the statement, He says, "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." Christ is on His knees in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's praying to the Father. And He says, "This is the essence of eternal life, that they know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You sent." Now, that verse unpacked would take another book for us to go through, but just look at it here, as Jesus was making that prayer, it shows from the part of Jesus Himself, a deep, heartfelt desire, the disciples, not only those that were with Him in the garden that night, but you, me, all disciples for all time, would follow Him and know the fullness of God, the only true God. They would know Him as the one sent by the Father, who was Jesus, the Christ.

In this verse, we begin to unpack the fact that God is one, that God is also a family composed of two beings. And one of those, the Logos, became flesh and on that evening was going to offer Himself up as the Lamb of God. The Bible reveals this truth through many, many Scriptures that God is our father, Christ is our brother, and that we have a spiritual relationship with Him, able to experience a close, loving kind bond with not only Father, but with Christ Himself, just as we do in a family. And even if we don't have a physical family or it's kind of estranged and separated, spiritually, we can have that relationship restored through relationship with God and with Jesus Christ.

John 17:3 is really where we begin to seek an answer to this question put to us, how do we come to Jesus and follow Him, and become a disciple? Because it's at the essence of eternal life. We'll follow-up on this. We'll take you to a few more scriptures as we walk our way through this question to some understanding that will come from the Word of God.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.