Cost of Discipleship

After examining experts from Dallas Willard’s “The spirit of the Disciplines”, I am reminded that discipleship is not an option like purchasing that IPod or going out to eat instead would be. The following are excerpts that portray his wisdom in such matters:

“…The New Testament is a book about disciples,…all of the assurances and the benefits offered to humankind in the gospel evidently presuppose such a life and do not make realistic sense apart from it. The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy duty model of the Christian…He stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God.
For at least several decades the churches of the western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian…and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward or in discipleship. …Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ. …When Jesus observed that one must forsake the dearest things – family, ‘all that he hath,’ and ‘his own life also’ (Luke 14)- insofar as that was necessary to accompany him, he stated a simple fact: it was the only possible doorway to discipleship. …The disciple of Christ desires above all else to be like him. …The Disciple is one who, intent upon becoming Christ like and so dwelling in his ‘faith and practice,’ systematically and progressively rearranges his affairs to that end. …. One cannot be a disciple of Christ without forfeiting things normally sought in human life, and that one who pays little in the world’s coinage to bear his name has reason to wonder where he or she stands with God. …The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity that it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane.”

Check out Matthew 28-16-20 to find more reading on this. This week I must meditate on the Lordship of Christ. I do not believe my life currently reflects being under the authority of Jesus. Instead of focusing on the cost of giving these area’s over to Christ, I need to focus on the high price I pay by keeping them under my control.

Wisdom from Lewis

“The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked- the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’” –C.S. Lewis

What are some of the reasons I fear giving my life completely to God? Perhaps because I want this life to be easy, and I know when I give it away to God it could become hard. I am lazy, and laziness means more work in the long run. Which areas of my life am I most reluctant to surrender to God? Currently it is my time and my eyes. I pour anything in that I want to, not contemplating on the consequences of such actions. In what ways have I experienced the heavy burden of trying to remain in control of my life? I don’t want to surrender to God every morning, and now I have come to the point where I feel I am faking Christianity. I need to return to the place where I diverged from my Heavenly Father, and ask for forgiveness and seek restoration.