The Cost of Discipleship

It has been a few months since my last posting. I offer no apologies for this, only to say that I will not post anything unless I believe it is from God. Today, I felt the need to express my thoughts concerning the Christian's daily walk. Walking with God faithfully means a great deal more than merely saying with my lips "I am a follower of Jesus Christ," or, "I am a Christian."

This fact never before came home to my heart more than it did over the past few months of my life. The Lord has been showing me truths about Him which would doubtless have made me much the better for it, had I known about them years earlier. Today, He directed my attention to a passage found in Matthew. In the 16th chapter there is recorded a very dynamic dialogue going on between the Lord and His disciples. After their return from telling others about Him, and the responses they had received from their listeners as to who they thought He was, He then asked them, "and who do you say that I am?" Peter told Him, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," (16:16).

But the same Peter who was blessed with this revelation from God, is the same man who soon after tried to set his Lord straight when Jesus told them all about what was to soon take place in His life. He told them He would soon go to Jerusalem where He would be handed over to the religious authorities there, suffer many things from them, then be killed, and then He would be raised on the third day.

This did not sit well at all with Peter. All Peter could hear was that this man whom he trusted and wanted to follow was soon going to die. He likely did not want to hear the part about Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Peter told Jesus that this would not happen to Him, that he would do all he could to prevent this from taking place. It was right then that the Lord "turned, and said unto Peter,

"Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me;
For thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those
that be of men."

I was right after giving Peter this very sharp but badly needed rebuke that He said to all of His followers,

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall
lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
(16:24 & 25).

Dr. Luke (he was a Greek physician whom the Lord used to write one of the gospel accounts) used the word "daily" to give even more emphasis on what the Lord meant here. "Take up your cross daily" He said.

Peter was perhaps no different from most of the other Jews who lived during that time. Their country was under Roman occupation. Oftentimes there was oppression under the Roman yoke, and what Peter, like many others wanted, was a Messiah who was not going to die but keep on living and who would set up an earthly kingdom absent of all that was unpleasant. He had thought life with Jesus would go on being like it had always been since His arrival here on the earth. He did not hear what he wanted to hear, and so he resisted.

I fear that a growing number of us in America who call ourselves Christians, might in fact be Christians in name only. But for us to say we know Christ and that we trust and believe in Him, or that we are His followers, could well be that we really have never grasped what that truly means, from God's perspective. I say this because man's perspective on spiritual matters, that is, matters concerning eternity, really do not count, unless of course they are in line with what God thinks about it. We have grown far too comfortable here. Most of us have far more than we will ever need of this world's goods. None of us, when compared with what believers are going through in other lands, have really had to go through the fires of severe persecution. Not just yet anyway. But I sincerely believe that this time is soon coming, and when it does come, it will be a time when God's true wheat will be clearly and unmistakably separated from those who have claimed they are His wheat, but in truth, are the tares.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man of God. I do not care to listen to the remarks given by the misled uninformed who like to toss him in with that crowd who banded together to assassinate Adolf Hitler. There is no substantiated evidence whatsoever that he could be implicated in that plot. On the contrary, what this man was about was to preach the love of God revealed in His blessed Son Jesus Christ, (a truth totally rejected by Hitler and his Nazi regime). There is a book Bonhoeffer wrote entitled "The Cost of Discipleship." You will not read this book as a 21st century Christian in America without feeling both convicted and humbled. I could not do it when I read it. Brother Bonhoeffer's trust in, and faithfulness to his Savior cost him his earthly life. He was arrested by the Gestapo, incarcerated in one of the Nazi prison camps, and only two days prior to the arrival of the Allied troops who liberated the camp, he was hanged. Only two days away from the day he could have been released.

Now, I am not saying that any of us might be hanged or beheaded, or shot if we hold true to the faith, but I do believe that the Lord is going to both bring about and allow things to occur in this land of the free and home of the brave that will definitely test our faith, to determine whether it be real faith or no. The truth is, and I would like to quote Brother James Knox here, that sinful men do not usually come to trust Christ when Christians living a trouble-free life tell them about Christ's love for them. But they will very likely be won by the Christian who lives his life like a Christian when things could not seem to be their worst for him or her.

He further added that a man dying of some terminal illness who is unsaved, is more likely going to listen to a Christian in the same hospital room with him who is also dying, than he will to a preacher who stands over his bed telling him about God's love for him, and he is in the best of health.

I want to say more about this in the postings which follow.