Discipleship Is Free, But Not Cheap

Ask any Christian seeking to remain faithful to a walk with Christ in a north African, middle eastern, or south Asian country, and he or she will tell you that the grace of God is free, but it is not cheap.

When Jesus told his first disciples to follow him, he told them what he would do to them, but not how much it would change their lives. That would take three more years of discipling, of teaching them what it meant to follow him. They had to identify with him and imitate him. When he was gone, they were to take his place and do what he had been doing. That’s being a disciple.

A recent weekend spent in studying how to start the discipling process in the life of another brought the cost of being a disciple of Jesus home once more. The conference revolved around IECS, the Intentional Evangelistic Church Strategy (see ncbaptist.org). The focus was making the local church more evangelistic. Since the local church is made up of those who claim to be part of the local Christian family, the goal is to make the church member more aware of and involved in evangelizing and discipling a lost world.

In the past I had come to see four major areas involved in the discipling process. This IECS conference reawakened their importance to me.

The first area is clarifying priorities (Matthew 6:33). Jesus told his disciples to follow him. He was to be their priority. Placing God’s Kingdom first puts everything else in the proper perspective. When we choose to put God first, he promises to take care of all our basic needs.

The Gospel of Matthew records the second area as well (Matthew 22:34-40). This area focuses upon the priority of love for God that is then translated into a love for our fellow man. The nature of God defines love. Learning to love through God allows us to have the proper kind of love for others.

In Luke we find my favorite statement of the third area (Luke 9:23). To be a disciple of Jesus involves self-denial, daily cross-bearing, and the intentional following of Jesus wherever he directs. Jesus calls each of us to acknowledge what would build a wall between him and us and get rid of it. Our crucifixion must involve a death to the hold the world would have on us. Only then can we be truly free.

The final area is defined once again in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 28:18-20) and has come to be known as the Great Commission. There are no limitations here. The command goes to every follower of Jesus, and it extends to the ends of the world. Every believer is a disciple and everyone deserves to be a disciple.

For my own ease of use I have come to call these four texts the Four Great “C”s: the Great Calling in Matthew 6; the Great Commandments in Matthew 22; the Great Commitment in Luke 9; and the Great Commission in Matthew 28.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that living as a disciple of Jesus is easy or cheap. He comes to each of us and asks us to follow him, be his disciple, and then go make disciples for him among other people. You cannot seek first the Kingdom of God without sacrificing your own kingdom. You cannot love God first and love yourself equally. You cannot seek your own wants in a lifestyle of self-denial and cross-bearing. You cannot make disciples of people throughout the world if your primary concerns are comfort and safety.

Becoming a disciple of Jesus is easy. Living as a disciple of Jesus is much harder. Becoming a disciple of Jesus is free. Remaining a disciple of Jesus can become costly. You cannot find a better teacher and daily companion than the Son of God. It’s also a friendship that will last for eternity. It’s the best investment you can make.

This Trouble Has a Purpose, Right?

Recently the pastor of one of my churches led a four week study on suffering (see the powerpoint slides here: fbcsp.org). As might be expected, the study was thought provoking and discussion provoking. The large classroom was filled each session. He quoted a lot of scholars (see the powerpoint slides) and provided multiple perspectives on the subject.

The following comments are not from a biblical scholar. They do not represent the mature thought of one who has struggled long years with suffering and reached profound conclusion. In fact I have found more questions than answers in my brief life. The surprise for me is not that I have found no answers, but rather that my questions have a changed a bit through the years.

Three persons in scripture have helped shape my questions. I suppose one must start with the Old Testament hero Job to begin to formulate questions in a context of suffering.

Why do bad things happen to good people, to God’s people? Job’s first response was simply “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” When the suffering became personally physical and lingered on day after day, then Job began to ask the big question “Why”. The only answer Job received was in the sovereignty of God some events were to be accepted without an understandable answer. Allow the circumstances to draw you closer to God and not become a barrier between you. Understanding can never be a prerequisite to a dependent relationship.

Chapter eight of Matthew begins with an encounter between Jesus and a leper. The social outcast comes to Jesus and in humble posture makes a statement, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Job’s faith drove him to point his finger in the face of God and demand answers. This leper does not ask why. He only admits that healing rests in the will of Jesus.

In some measure perhaps Job’s quandary takes this same form. Like the leper Job is confident that God (Jesus) can rectify the situation and make the “bad” go away, or at least give an explanation. The question does not reside in the “can” but in the “will”. For the follower of Jesus Christ, who sees him as Lord, Savior, and compassionate companion, there is no doubt about the ability to perform the needed miracle. The question is rather a focus upon doubt concerning the will of God, his willingness to intervene and produce the good. Here the strength of the Christian’s faith can be revealed as in no other situation. I know you can, God, but can I count on you to do it? It is not your power I doubt, but your own desire to intervene.

Mark 9:24 records the words of a man with whom I readily identify and perhaps most admire for his honesty. “I believe; help my unbelief.” His son lies captive in the clutches of an epileptic demon. The father is helpless to drive away the demon or save his son from its torture. His heart is being driven to despair. He has gone everywhere for help to no avail. He turns first to the disciples of Jesus and then to the Master himself.

In his words we find desperate hope covered in a shroud of doubt. “If you can, please help!” Jesus turns the table and his reply might be seen as a stinging rebuke. I am not the one to doubt. It is your own faith that is in doubt.

The words of the agonizing father ring down through the years, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

I see a battered child, a wounded warrior, a third miscarriage, a malignant tumor, a fatal wreck involving a drunken driver, diabetic wounds that refuse to heal, pancreatic cancer, and relentless congestive heart failure. One time standing by a casket, I asked why allow cancer in someone who leaves behind a widow and four young children. Now after having stood by a lot more caskets, I have a tendency to confess, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

To Sacrifice or Not to Sacrifice…

Why give up anything for Lent? Why tell someone you love them on Valentine’s Day which just happens to fall on the day after Ash Wednesday (today) this year? What does this have to do with church burnings in northern India and mutilation of Christians in Nigeria anyway? I’m glad you asked because there is a lot of connection.

One verse from the Bible lays a more than adequate foundation for the season of Lent and the appropriateness of having (Saint) Valentine’s Day fall near its beginning. That is the well-known John 3:16. Love and sacrifice are brought together in the divine context, and together they remain the primary principles for the Christian life. One cannot deeply love without a willingness to sacrifice. Significant sacrifice is rare without the motivation of love.

According to church history St. Valentine and others with a similar name met martyrdom for their faith in the early centuries of Christendom. Multiple legends grew over the years expressing their faith and love. It was not until the days of Chaucer, however, that the idea of romantic love was attached to these early saints. Since then Hallmark supported by Godiva and Russell Stover has introduced us to the power of romantic expression through cards and chocolate.

Enter Lent. With the approach of Holy Week the joy Christians feel at the coming of Resurrection Sunday, Easter, is tempered by the knowledge that before there could be that glorious Sunday, there had to be Good Friday, the horror of Golgotha, the crucifixion. The worst of Roman forms of capital punishment, crucifixion was designed to maximize human pain and humiliation. A healthy individual could last as long as three days nailed to a cross slowly succumbing to dehydration and weather exposure.

With Lent we are asked to remember the sacrifice that was made for us prior to being granted that unbelievable gift of hope at the resurrection. Jesus took only about six hours to die after being nailed to the cross. The short time can be at least partially explained by the whipping he received first. The physical torture, however, was not the sacrifice that brought us the hope. That was symbolized in the three hours of darkness.

Upon rare occasions in the Bible we see instances in which events take place that are in the hands of God alone, and man at most is only an observer. The moment the covenant is made with Abram (Genesis 15) is one such event. Another in the Old Testament might be the confrontation between God and Elijah (I Kings 19). In the New Testament a classic example is the Mount of Transfiguration event found in Matthew 17 and parallel passages. The event that took place on the cross between God the Father and God the Son is just such an occasion.

Mankind will never understand the dynamics of redemption. We can only accept it as an act of divine love. The Trinity is a doctrine beyond human comprehension because it exists only within the Divine One. In those moments of darkness during the crucifixion, that which had always been One was separated, and the Holy Father abandoned the Perfect Son (Matthew 27:46) because of our sin. Our redemption, our hope of salvation, came as a result of an event occurring within the Person of God.

For God loved so deeply, he abandoned his Son. It was the only way we could be given hope. God, and his Son, sacrificed to show divine love, the love that willingly sacrifices self to show that love. Yes, it is very appropriate for Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent to have Valentine’s Day included.

Oh, about those Christian persecutions I mentioned earlier. Those people thought it was no sacrifice to suffer loss of property, health, and life itself for their faith in Christ after what he had done for them. It was just the natural response of love. So take time to tell someone you love them. Do something that shows that love. Make it happen more often that just on Valentine’s Day or during Lent.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

It has been fifteen months since I felt a pain in the back of my throat that sent me first to our family doctor and then to the hospital by ambulance. I felt fine. I couldn’t see why everyone else was getting so excited. It was a simple pain that only occurred when I was on the treadmill and went away when I got off the torture machine.

Our local doctor knew better and the heart catheterization at the hospital confirmed the real problem. A major heart artery had a 95% blockage due to an unusual crook that allowed junk to build up. The problem had probably been there since before birth. It finally revealed itself after more than 60 years of regular exercise and generally controlled eating (except at church homecomings). A healthy exterior belied a deteriorating cardiac arterial system.

Google a simple phrase like “healthy runner dies of heart attack”, and a long series of news releases come up carrying the same conclusion. Good looks on the outside are hiding a dangerous, perhaps deadly, situation on the inside. The most famous such occurrence may be that of Jim Fixx of The Complete Book of Running fame. By the time of his death in 1984 due to a heart attack, he was known worldwide as an exercise guru. Yet an unknown problem related to an enlarged heart ended his career.

Fixx was 52. Others in the list of articles were 47, 30, 58, etc. All were the picture of health. Then reality hit.

In working with the 33 churches in my association, I wonder sometimes at what is happening beneath the surface of the harmonious and organized activities of each of the congregations. All too often I hear of a pastor leaving, or a group of families starting to attend other churches, or a business meeting that left the church divided in the midst of anger and hurt feelings.

Jesus said we need to be honest with ourselves and each other, look beneath the surface of activities, and evaluate the core motives and values that determine who we are (Matthew 23:25-28). A healthy church is much like a healthy individual. What you see on the outside is what you have on the inside. A healthy heart offers a better chance for a healthy exterior. A healthy core can make for a much stronger body.

A healthy person will focus on keeping both interior and exterior in good shape. Regular medical check-ups, eat the right foods, get adequate rest, take time to exercise mind and body. A healthy church will allow the Holy Spirit to be active within it, focus on the spiritual training necessary, practice spiritual disciplines, and stretch its activities out into the community around it.

Clogged arteries and misshapen heart muscles do not provide the hope for a healthy life. A church that focuses upon its membership, refuses to take the risk of reaching out to others in missions and ministry, and sees its faithfulness measured in preserving the traditions of men has a false idea of its health. Such a church will find its useful life cut short and its spiritual influence in its community limited or non-existent.

Good physical health involves getting out of the overstuffed chair, away from the television, and out into the world. Allowing only good stuff into our bodies gives us a better chance at giving our best effort to others.

A healthy church will focus upon honoring God in its planning, ministries, and use of the resources that God has placed in its stewardship. A healthy church will nourish itself on the best spiritual food, exercise its faith by moving forward to accomplish with God what only God can do, and have as its goal bringing glory to God through its own activities and the lifestyles of its members.

So exercise your faith, feed on the Bread of Life and the Living Water, and rest in the arms of the Holy Spirit. It makes for a healthy heart.