Hello fellow sojourners! This week is not our normal Saturday Newsletter but a new article about the call to discipleship. These are some of my recent findings with the Lord. Enjoy this week’s read.
Catch up on our previous newsletters here.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. (Ps. 119:71-72)
Sometimes it’s hard to see the treasure.
The opportunities of this life shine with prosperity and prominence. Choosing the narrow path (or as I like to call it—the dirt road) is the last option we would pursue. It is the road less traveled, where not many have gone, and not many are going. It is easy to see the loneliness or ways we are “missing out” from the life we once knew.
But God’s word begins to do something as we walk through the narrow gate.
His word calls.
His word beckons a response from not just our hearts, but our feet. Our attention. Our gaze. Our appetite. Our ambitions. To put it plainly, His word messes up our lives. The things we did a year ago don’t satisfy like they used to. We keep going back and doing the same things we know to do but they aren’t working anymore.
God’s word calls us to a life that isn’t obedience in theory, but obedience that’s tangible. The kind of obedience your coworkers can’t understand but they know the call you have answered is real.
It is answering the call of God’s word where treasure is found.
It is treasure buried under the dust of mundane obedience. There is nothing desirable or even admirable about these small decisions. But in the eyes of God, they are everything. The narrow road is the path we run from; but the path we were made for.
The call of God’s word is the call to discipleship.
As the disciples cried for Jesus to teach them how to pray, we too, need Jesus to show us how. Prayer is not limited to requests we make to God but ongoing communion with Jesus until His kingdom comes.
The cross is the intersection of heaven and earth—yet an instrument of death. Jesus died our death on the cross, yet He calls His disciples to bear their cross as He did. This life is our own walk to Golgotha. In bearing our cross we are liberated from ourselves and the bondage of this evil age.
We are stewarding the death of Christ improperly if we live as if Jesus accomplished everything for us and we don’t have any responsibility before Him. We were ransomed from this world not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). Our sins cost God the life of His Son. This is the most costly sacrifice.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Col. 1:24-28)
“The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In the words of Bonhoeffer, it is easy to approach our time with God out of our poverty. Let’s face it, we NEED God. We have very real situations that need the intervention of heaven. However, when we keep God in the constraints of our problems, that is all He will ever be to us.
A prayer life founded on our problems will never mature us into the fullness of Christ. All Jesus will be is a doctor we see once in a while when we need him. He will be the mechanic who comes to fix our appliances when they break. Although God comes through for our situations, there is so much more He wants to reveal to us.
Paul prayed beyond asking God to get him out of prison. He sought the riches of the glory of Christ living inside of him. He set his eyes on the mystery hidden for ages. He spent his days unveiling the Gospel from the seed of Eve that would crush Satan’s head to the New Covenant secured on Calvary. There is so much beauty in the kingdom of God for us to explore, even in momentary captivity.
Everything changes when our prayers go from “Dear Lord, please…” to “My Father in heaven, hollowed be your name.” Our eyes are lifted off of our issues we can do nothing to fix and onto the impossible power of God. The holiness of God transcends the deficiencies in our hearts and lives. I am convinced as we keep our eyes on Jesus and His word, our stressful situations will be very different.
Our relationship with Jesus will no longer change with our feelings but will become a place of refuge and steadiness when our world comes crashing down. Even when we don’t hear God speak we can dig into His word. We can meet God early in the morning and late at night in expectation—because His word always speaks.
The call to discipleship is the call to maturity.
This is not for the faint of heart. It is a life of fox holes, crosses, counting the cost, plows, rejection, persecution, and leaving our knapsacks behind. Discipleship is the greatest unseen war; the fight for eternity. It is a war that is only won by surrender to the Word of God.
So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him. (Luke 5:11)