Religious people can believe a number of possible lies. One: that God is so far away, or we are so bad, that it is not possible to relate with Him personally. Two: that because God loves everybody there is no barrier to accessing God and our sin is not really offensive to Him. Three: that we can have no significant part in His kingdom because of our sin. Four: that God does not care about our badness and leaves us to do all of His work in the the best way we can. All of these are wrong. They are false, unbiblical, deceptions.
 
The relationship between Jesus and the disciples in this verse can help put us right. Firstly: Jesus is the Master who has the right to tell the disciples what is right ('disciple' means 'learner'). Secondly: Jesus actively instructed his disciples because there was no other way for them to know what was true. Thirdly: unless they accepted His instructions they would remain ignorant and be useless to His kingdom. Fourthly: although Jesus trained His disciples and prepared them to minister in His absence, He was still personally active and working as well.
 
Unlike some modern day employees, the disciples could never shake off the Master's authority and run the 'business' on their own. The Master would always remain the Master, and the disciples would always remain learners of Jesus and dependent on Him. At the same time, although Jesus is physically absent He is always with us in Spirit (John 14:18). He is still at work in the world (John 5:17). And yet He commands us to make more disciples under His authority (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus was never independent of His Father (John 14:21); nor can we be independent of Him (John 15:4).
 
The wonder of the gospel is that, although we are sinners, Jesus has made a way for us to be set free from sin. Although we have no righteousness of our own, He has given us the right to be children of God and to work in His 'family business'. God wants us to repent of our sins and be restored so that we may serve Him. In all of this we can never be independent of Jesus. He is still our Master and we are still learning under His instructions. True faith leads a person away from arrogance and self-assurance - to a humility which will learn from instruction, at the same time as recognising that Christ is still doing a far greater work. At best we are His servants, children and junior partners in gospel ministry. Anything more than that, and we have fallen to pride's seduction and become useless.