I’m surprised how many people are searching for the “12 steps to Discipleship” or the “5 keys to being a follower of Jesus”. We don’t need any gimmicks to learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus. He has already clearly spelled out the process in His Word. The problem is that following Jesus is hard and requires us to make wholesale changes in our lives. That is not the Jesus most people want; they want the Jesus that spares them from spending eternity in Hell, but not much else. For too long, Christianity has been synonymous with inactivity. We have been taught that once we pray the magic prayer, our eternity is covered regardless of whatever we might do from that point forward.
Daily Life
Simple
I’m an extremely driven person with enough dreams and aspirations to span a couple of lifetimes. One of the biggest challenges in dealing with my personality is remembering to focus on the most important things in life. In my case, that means taking time to concentrate on Jesus and make the adjustments necessary in my life to be a consistent follower of His. There is a tendency in our Western culture to be very busy; nobody really cares what you are busy doing, just as long as you are busy. We’ve lost the simplicity of previous generations, and we may be losing our souls in the process.
Live Simply; Give Generously.
Two simple statements that should mark the lives of every follower of Christ are “live simply” and “give generously”. In the Western world where we find ourselves the wealthiest people in history, it can be difficult to remember the way in which we have been called to live. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Proverbs 30:7-9 which says “Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need. Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, “Who is the Lord?” or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.” What an amazing way to live – relying on God for daily provision, finding no pride or identity in our possessions, but rather simply trusting in God to provide.
Becoming an Intentional Disciple
Too many self-proclaimed Christians believe that maturity in Christ will happen automatically over time. They think the longer they have known Him, the more they will know about Him. None of our other relationships work this way, so why should we expect our relationship with God to be the exception? We might have the same mail delivery person for twenty years, but odds are we will never actually know them. We probably know their name and might even recognize and wave to them at the grocery store, but that is generally as deep as our relationship will ever go. Unless we make a conscious effort to understand what makes the other person tick, to share dreams and aspirations together, to help one another in a time of need – until we do those things, we can’t truly be in a relationship with them. Yet we think with God this dynamic will somehow be different. We believe that since He is God and we said a prayer to Him, our relationship will magically blossom and all will be well.
What Are You Holding Back?
To be a true follower of Christ means surrendering everything to Him. The instant we proclaim Him to be our Lord, we give up our right to call anything our own. All of our money, our time, and our possessions are now His to be used to glorify God and to further the Kingdom. Intellectually, we know this, but the translation somehow gets muddied between our heart and our actions. Instead of giving everything to Him, we have a tendency to reserve certain pockets of our lives to keep outside of His control.