The cost of Discipleship
Discipleship- chapter 11
The Cost of Discipleship
-Jesus never promised an easy life to those who followed him. It is true he came to meet the deepest needs of every one of us. Only in him can we find forgiveness for the past, a new life for the present, and a glorious hope for the future.- p.231
- Jesus was so honest about the cost of discipleship that many of the enthusiastic crowds who flocked after him turned back and no longer went with him.
- In worldly terms it means a life of constant uncertainty and insecurity but in spiritual terms it means a life of continuous certainty in things not seen, and of total security in the love of God.
- With Jesus it is all or nothing. To be in the kingdom of God is to accept Jesus as King and if Jesus is King, his word has authority and must be obeyed. - p.232
-Those first Christians learnt obedience, whatever the cost in terms of personal sacrifice.
- Everything ultimately depends on God’s grace- his undeserved love as he takes the initiative in reaching out to us when we are lost and helpless. –p.234
- Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believe, it is a sign of deliberate or unconscious disobedience, only the devil has an answer for our moral difficulties, and he says, “Keep on posing problems and you will escape the necessity of obedience”. –p.235
- And the basis of the good works that James is talking about in his epistle is obedience to the word of God: ‘Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves’.
- Many Christian acts are valid and good. But they mean nothing, if Jesus is not obeyed in our private lives. –p.236
- You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. –p.239
- But we often have to learn the hard way that God’s word is right his instructions are good. We are free to ignore them if we want to, but we are not free to ignore the consequences. –p.240
- In this new realm, our relationship with everyone and everything must therefore be ‘in Christ’ if it is to be good and right in the sight of God. –p.241
- Christian life in a non-Christian world is tension, tress and at times even agony.
- WE are called, as disciples of Christ to share our lives together, and, if need be, our possessions together. We are to open our hearts to one another, take off our masks, become real and honest. And when fellowships of Christians try seriously to do this in the power of the Holy Spirit, they will soon discover two things. 1st they will find deep and loving relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ and this can prove enormously enriching and fulfilling. But 2nd, they will also find pain, since we are still angular and sinful persons who, huddling together for warmth, hurt and jab one another. The temptation then will be to separate, to pull back to a safe and less painful distance, to erect little barriers, and to protect ourselves from those vulnerable deep relationships where we are likely to get hurt again and again. In so doing, we shall destroy or at least greatly weaken, the love and unity that Christ commanded, prayed for, died for and sent his Spirit to accomplish. –p.244
-God’s glory is to be seen today in the church. No one has ever seen God. Writes John ‘ if we love one another, God abides in us’-p.245
- Our own Christian brother will heap on us his sin- his anger, judgement, frustration, accusation, demands, fears. The challenge to us is not to return our own sin. If we want unity in the biblical sense, scriptural teaching is that it will cost us our lives in give ness to the Lord and to each other. That kind of fellowship is produced by gentleness, and the price of gentleness is brokenness of spirit.- p.246
The Cost of Discipleship
-Jesus never promised an easy life to those who followed him. It is true he came to meet the deepest needs of every one of us. Only in him can we find forgiveness for the past, a new life for the present, and a glorious hope for the future.- p.231
- Jesus was so honest about the cost of discipleship that many of the enthusiastic crowds who flocked after him turned back and no longer went with him.
- In worldly terms it means a life of constant uncertainty and insecurity but in spiritual terms it means a life of continuous certainty in things not seen, and of total security in the love of God.
- With Jesus it is all or nothing. To be in the kingdom of God is to accept Jesus as King and if Jesus is King, his word has authority and must be obeyed. - p.232
-Those first Christians learnt obedience, whatever the cost in terms of personal sacrifice.
- Everything ultimately depends on God’s grace- his undeserved love as he takes the initiative in reaching out to us when we are lost and helpless. –p.234
- Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believe, it is a sign of deliberate or unconscious disobedience, only the devil has an answer for our moral difficulties, and he says, “Keep on posing problems and you will escape the necessity of obedience”. –p.235
- And the basis of the good works that James is talking about in his epistle is obedience to the word of God: ‘Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves’.
- Many Christian acts are valid and good. But they mean nothing, if Jesus is not obeyed in our private lives. –p.236
- You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. –p.239
- But we often have to learn the hard way that God’s word is right his instructions are good. We are free to ignore them if we want to, but we are not free to ignore the consequences. –p.240
- In this new realm, our relationship with everyone and everything must therefore be ‘in Christ’ if it is to be good and right in the sight of God. –p.241
- Christian life in a non-Christian world is tension, tress and at times even agony.
- WE are called, as disciples of Christ to share our lives together, and, if need be, our possessions together. We are to open our hearts to one another, take off our masks, become real and honest. And when fellowships of Christians try seriously to do this in the power of the Holy Spirit, they will soon discover two things. 1st they will find deep and loving relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ and this can prove enormously enriching and fulfilling. But 2nd, they will also find pain, since we are still angular and sinful persons who, huddling together for warmth, hurt and jab one another. The temptation then will be to separate, to pull back to a safe and less painful distance, to erect little barriers, and to protect ourselves from those vulnerable deep relationships where we are likely to get hurt again and again. In so doing, we shall destroy or at least greatly weaken, the love and unity that Christ commanded, prayed for, died for and sent his Spirit to accomplish. –p.244
-God’s glory is to be seen today in the church. No one has ever seen God. Writes John ‘ if we love one another, God abides in us’-p.245
- Our own Christian brother will heap on us his sin- his anger, judgement, frustration, accusation, demands, fears. The challenge to us is not to return our own sin. If we want unity in the biblical sense, scriptural teaching is that it will cost us our lives in give ness to the Lord and to each other. That kind of fellowship is produced by gentleness, and the price of gentleness is brokenness of spirit.- p.246
posted by Mim @ 3:59 PM
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