The Cost Of Discipleship

We're notorious for making quick decisions without counting the costs. There's a reason the checkout lanes at any supermarket are loaded with all kinds of stuff that we really don't need. Anything from candy to drinks to magazines and newspapers are there. You'll even find little gadgets that belong on a late night infomercials hanging up close to the checkouts. Its not anything you would go into the store specifically to get but they're banking on you falling victim to the impulse buy and not really counting the cost towards your budget.

Much in the same way the devil likes to dangle things in our way that distract us spirituality and causes us to make that "impulse buy" on something that's not healthy for our walk with Christ. We'll buy into pornography, pride, jealousy, greed, anger or anything else the devil can sell us without ever thinking about what its costing us in terms of our relationship to God, other people or even our self-esteem. Obviously nothing is free in today's world and even our salvation came at the expense of Jesus. That's why in Luke 9:23 He reminds us about the cost of following him.

²³ Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

The Greek word for deny here is "Arneomai" which means to refuse or to disown someone or something. Too often we fail to count the cost of disowning ourselves when it comes to following Jesus. Its no longer about me and what I want but rather about Jesus and what He wants. My natural desire will always be to cry out against the things of God and try and forge my own path. That's why on a daily basis Jesus is asking me to "disown" who I am and to conform to who He wants me to be. I accomplish this by:

* Taking up my cross - The verb here is Greek "airo" meaning to "lift up, take up, pick up" and carry. If you were a person carrying a cross it meant that you were marked for death. You sentence had been handed down and you were doomed. At the moment I gave my life to Christ I surrendered control of who I was to Him. You could say that I marked myself for death so that I could daily live for Jesus. Every day we are needed reminders that we belong to a higher calling and our old patterns of living are gone as if they're deceased.

* Following Christ - The weight of carrying a cross would cause someone to stoop over and not allow them to walk completely upright. The only way to get to where you were going was to watch the feet of the person in front of you and walk everywhere they walked as you were being led. You get the point here? If we truly want to go where Jesus is taking us then we must be focused on walking in his footsteps. That would require drowning out the distractions of everyday life and seeking the blessings of Christ.

So how about it? Are you ready to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? Are you ready to count the cost and sell out for discipleship?

Teach Me To Pray

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew we find an amazing example from Jesus as to how we should pray. Its not just a verbal example of how we should approach the throne of God but also a look at what the condition of our heart and our attitude should be towards our Heavenly Father.

Speaking to a group of people who were accustomed to praying, and desiring to know more, Jesus begins in verse five telling his followers that when they pray they shouldn't act as the hypocrites which is a word that means “play-actors.” In essence he’s saying don’t pretend to be someone that you’re not when talking to God. He sees our hearts and knows our motives and while we can generally fool a few people into thinking that we’re someone we’re really not we can’t pull anything over the eyes of God. Praying for “effect” so that others will think that you’re righteous only serves to damage your relationship to God by bouncing ineffective prayers everywhere but to His throne.

We should never utter one syllable of prayer, either in public or in private, until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and are actually praying to Him.... I can remember when that thought transformed my prayer life. I was brought up to pray. I was taught to pray so early in life that I have not the slightest recollection of who taught me to pray.... Nevertheless, prayer was largely a mere matter of form. There was little real thought of God, and no real approach to God. And even after I was converted, yes, even after I had entered the ministry, prayer was largely a matter of form. But the day came when I realized what real prayer meant, realized that prayer was having an audience with God, actually coming into the presence of God and asking and getting things from Him. And the realization of that fact transformed my prayer life. Before that, prayer had been a mere duty, and sometimes a very irksomeduty, but from that time on prayer has been not merely a duty but a privilege, one of the most highly esteemed privileges of life. Before that, the thought that I had was, "How much time must I spend in prayer?" The thought that now possesses me is, "How much time may I spend in prayer without neglecting the other privileges and duties of life? - R.A. Torrey, The Power of Prayer

Jesus says that those who pray as hypocrites will have already received their reward which comes from the Greek misthos, a word that literally means dues paid for work rendered. Remember that by using the word “hypocrites” Jesus is talking about “actors” pretending to be someone. Their “reward”, according to Jesus, is only that people get to see them praying to God. Nothing else! That’s a pretty shallow prayer life. So it begs the question as to what the motive is behind our prayers.

This word for prayer encompasses all the aspects of prayer: submission, confession, petition, intercession, praise, and thanksgiving. To be effective a person’s prayer life must include all of these and not just a wish list that we take to God.

God desires to know you on a personal and intimate basis. Just throwing out the occasional, “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer to fulfill our “spiritual obligation” or impress someone who might be looking on fails to even scratch the surface of what can be accomplished we a person approaches the throne of God, in confidence, will all of the aspects of a full prayer life. Are you paying God lip service or cultivating a relationship through your prayer life?

Is The Bible Really The Word Of God?

For centuries it was thought that the debate over the Bible being the Divinely Inspired Inerrant Word of God or not was solely between Christians and their atheistic and agnostic counterparts. However, as the debate rages on it clearly involves another party. Shockingly there are many within the church who do not believe the Bible to be completely accurate. The problem here is that we cannot have it both ways. The Bible cannot be both Divinely Inspired and inaccurate. However, according to recent survey results I came across there are many within our churches who do not believe in the accuracy of the Bible.

When asked if they believed that the Word of God was completely accurate the following percentages answered yes.

Assemblies of God 77%

Baptists (any type) 66%

Catholics 26%

Church of Christ 57%

Episcopal 22%

Lutheran (any type) 34%

Methodist (any type) 38%

Mormons 29%

Non-denominational Christian 70%

Presbyterian (any type) 40%

An atheist not believing in the accuracy of the Word of God really isn't that big of a surprise but 34% of Baptist not believing...that's a huge problem. Here's why.

In Paul's second letter to Timothy he states clearly that "all Scripture" comes directly from God.

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. - II Timothy 3:16-17

The most important word here in the entire passage is the first word, "all". Its a key adjective that means the totality of the scriptures or the whole scripture. Basically in layman's terms, every passage, every verse, every word, no exceptions.

With that understanding, take a look at what Francis Schaeffer says.

"Does inerrancy make a difference? Overwhelmingly; that difference is that with the Bible being what it is, God's Word and so absolute, God's objective truth, we do not need to be, and we should not be, caught in the ever-changing fallen cultures which surround us."

The Hebrew rabbis taught that the Spirit of God rested on and in the prophets and would speak through them to that their words didn't actually come from themselves but from the very mouth of God. That's why Peter makes the following declaration.

For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. II Peter 1:21

The early church was in agreement with this understanding and so we should be as well. Should the Bible contain any error or words from the hearts of men rather then the heart of God then the entire document is rendered useless.

Is the Bible really the Word of God? Absolutely! The writers of the Old Testament refer to their writings as the Words of God over 3,800 times.