Taking Discipleship Seriously

How seriously do we take our discipleship? I mean really?
(I know this is the second post immediately after the last but I had more and wanted to separate it, because really it is separate)

I've been reading a book called "Ten Things I Wish Jesus Never Said". Interesting title I know (He originally wanted to call it "Ten Tings I Hate About Jesus" but the publishers suggested otherwise. Shame though, cause he's trying to pick up on the difficult stuff Jesus said). Basically it examines some of the hardest teachings of Jesus (e.g. 'if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out' and 'If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily') and what they mean if we take them seriously insead of ignoring them becuase they're hard.

I really felt challenged reading this morning and wanted to share my thoughts.

As Christians, are we prepared to go all out for Christ? This question gets asked a lot, and we like to answer yes. I mean, how can we answer no? But in reality it's a question we have to wrestle with on our own, not when a speaker asks it in a sermon, or somewhere else equally disattached from real life. I've wrestled with it in the past but find it a question I constantly have to return to. Because, as Christians, we all tend to like to say "I would die for Jesus", and that's cool, but the question is followed with "Would you live for Him?". Today I have felt another question is appropriate, although it is going to sound strange - "Would you be the living dead for Him?".

Let me clarify. We are prepared to die and we are prepared to live our lives with Him in them. But I don't think that this is really enough. I mean, I think it goes deeper. If you say you are prepared to die for Him then I ask you this "are you prepared to spend months being tortured for Him?". Not so easy to answer anymore, I mean, if you think about that fully. None of us hope for a painful death, and I don't believe God exactly sits down and decides who to subject that to, but when we answer that question about dying for Him, have we thought it through? Obviously we hope He wouldn't let that happen to us, but if it came to it, are we really prepared to be tortured for Him?

So for that weird question, if we say dying for Him needs to be considered to the next level, as above, then what about living for Him?

Are we prepared to be the living dead? To remain living, but to have given up everything of what we consider to have been our lives? And I don't mean in a pack-your-bags-move-to-a-distant-place-to-be-a-missionary giving-up-what-is-our-lives way. I mean something deeper. And this is where it gets hard, for me and for all of us.

We take things for granted and think that God won't ask us to give them up. In fact we even consider them necessary for kingdom growth. I'm going to discuss this with one example, but it can be transfered further.

You, no doubt, have plenty of non-Christian friends. Are you prepared to lose them for Christ?
Many of us think that by being friends with the world we will make the gospel more attractive. And that if we become truly Christlike then the world will be attracted to us.
The thing is, a more biblically accurate statement would be that the more Christlike we become, the more the world will hate us. How prepared are we for that.

Again, that's not what we're pursuing directly, but if we look honestly, we know there's a good risk it's the case. I have to ask myself, is my discipleship (and therefore my witness to the world) suffering because I think I have to maintain these friendships. Don't get me wrong, I most definitly want to. But what if following Christ closer, as in my last post, means that people start to disown us as friends, or even persecute us. Because I think we misunderstand that word, persecute. We hear it in church and agree that believers will be persecuted, but we seem to think that means other believers, or that it means we wont be allowed to put a sign up in the town centre saying Christmas, we'll have to put up Winterville. But when we stop (and so much of this requires time of personal reflection) and think about it - that is what persecution would really be like. Our friends disown or abuse us, because we start following Christ further.

Sometimes, even, we should ask ourselves "If the world doesn't hate me, am I really become Christlike?", since Jesus told us that as the world hated Him it would hate us.

I realise that this is heavy, but I think it should be. I'm not advocating trying to lose friends. I'm not suggesting we need to get rid of things in our lives, but we need to constantly wrestle with the idea that as we get into closer fellowship with God, a lot of these kinds of things may have to be given up, even when we think they are good.

So my challenge is simply to consider how much you are really willing to give up for Christ. Your life (i.e. dying)? OR also your living (i.e. everything about your life)? Anything of your living that may get in the way? Even things that you think are good, like friendships?


Again, I find myself wondering what the Church would be like if we were like that. How much more powerful would the Church be if we pursued Christ relentlessly, even if it cost friendships and other things we think are important? Would revival spread?