I love God with all my heart. I love him with all that I am and with all that I could ever hope to be. I read that now and it is amazing that I am able to be able to say that. I have always been a believer and have always loved God. I would say that the main difference between me then and now is that now I look for ways to honor him. Look for ways to worship him with my life and everything in it. I am on an active pursuit of his presence every waking moment of my day and I hope to meet him in my sleeping time. Having said all of that it is hard for me to imagine myself telling him no or walking away from the discipleship walk I have decided to take with him. Even though I have confessed my dedication to him and to his will for my life, doesn’t mean that I still don’t have the choice. I have chosen to walk the discipleship walk with Christ I was not forced to.
God is a respecter of my free will and has never intruded on that. It seems strange to think that as big and sovereign as god is that he still leaves me with my free will even when it comes to the plan that he has for my life. To understand the discipleship walk is to know that it is full of uncertainty. I never know what I will be asked to do, where I will be asked to go, or what I will be asked to say. Being a disciple is being willing though to accept that. The process involves me resigning my life as I have laid it out and adopting the plan that God has for my life as my own. Undoubtedly the discipleship walk, by its unknown nature, is going to filled with times when I think I am being asked to that is beyond my capabilities. Beyond that I can imagine that there are times when I am going to be asked to do something that is not necessarily beyond my capabilities but beyond my desires. Even at this point god doesn’t raise his mighty hand and force me into submission. He allows me the freedom of will I possess.
Loving God the way that I do, I couldn’t ever imagine turning on him and telling him that I was done walking with him as a disciple, even in the face of being asked to undertake tasks that are beyond my desires. I am not allowed the luxury of picking and choosing how I will serve him. Discipleship is an all or nothing calling. It is an all or nothing decision. Accepting the call of discipleship is actually accepting a call to death; not death in the literal sense but in a more spiritual and figurative sense. I am sacrificing all that I know as me to live life adopting the teachings of Christ. Once god has called us and we have answered that call, we can never be the same. We have had a portion of his will revealed to us for our lives. Once we have known this truth and vision for our lives it is left to us to continue living in this newly revealed purpose. To do so is to continue to accept the role we have undertaken as disciples. That is not to say that the revealed plan for our lives as disciples will be at all easy. Even some of the original disciples from the time that Jesus was on the earth couldn’t handle what was being asked of them. In john 6:66 it says that some turned from him and walked away from their commitments to be disciples because they didn’t understand all that it entailed.
God is calling his people to be disciples of his teaching and to move in the purpose he has for their lives. Once he has revealed this purpose to you or even once he has called you to discipleship, it is then that you have a choice to make. Will you be a disciple or a deserter?
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