Discipleship Today

As Jesus walked down a dusty road heading toward Jerusalem, there he told the disciples that he was going to be turned over to the Romans and he would be beaten and crucified, but they didn’t listen to understand. So, on this road he stopped, he turned to the crowd, a large crowd and he declared to them the challenge of discipleship. Now, a disciple is someone who is declared a follower of a teacher, a learner, trying to do all that their teacher does. It was said by one rabbi at the time, that a disciple should follow so close to his teacher that the very dust that the teacher kicks upon lands on his own feet. The challenge still exists for people today that claim they are his followers. We are “in comparison” hate all of our other relationships. When people see us, hear us, and encounter us in life they should be able to know by what we say, and do that we are sold out to Jesus Christ. We are willing to die to ourselves and this world. The apostle Paul got that in being taught what it was like to follow Jesus. He said in Gal. 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So, I live in this earthy body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul got it and he lived a life that put Jesus and Jesus’ desires for him in front of everything the apostle did. And finally, Jesus told people wanting to be a disciple that we are to give up our possessions. To love Jesus so much that we would not let our fleshly desire of having more and more stuff. To not be tempted by the shiny stuff of this world. Our possessions, too often, and the desire to have more money and power than anyone else, becomes a god to us. Jesus lays it out – count the cost. Salvation is free for us all, but discipleship will cost us our lives. Just think with me what would happen in our families if we lived that way. If our discussions and actions around our children had to do with us living out the light of Jesus to a lost world. That’s why we keep the rules, why we do our homework, why, whether we get to play on the team at all, we play the hardest that we can. It’s not about us, it’s about Jesus using us in our circumstances and life situations. Some have made this an option, but there is no option – take up your own cross today and follow Jesus.