Category: discipline

What is the Cost of Following Christ?

August 15, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

We took an eye-opening look yesterday at passages where certain people offered to follow Christ only to be find their motives questioned, The Rich Young Ruler and a scribe in particular. The Rich Young Ruler turned away from Christ because he was told to sell his belongings and give the money to the poor. The scribe seems to have left after discovering that Jesus had no reservations at the local B-n-B. Today we see that those requirements may be easy to meet compared the requirements he gave to the masses who followed him.

Look at this verse:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:27

What are we to make of that? Those are pretty strong words? What of the ABCs of salvation? Accept Christ into your heart. Believe in the name of Jesus. Confess your sins. Where is Hate your family in the ABCs?

Now, before we go further I want to state up front – as I have in previous episodes that I am not advocating salvation by works. You and I can do nothing to make our sinful souls and mortal bodies worthy of heaven. Only by relying on the virgin birth, sinless life, sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ may we find eternal life. I am simply telling you the old 20th century teaching of “Freely Given, Freely Received” is wrong. There is a cost to you and I if we wish to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

What is that cost? That’s not for me to say. It is different for each and every believer. Yet, Jesus tells us to plan for it. In the next breath, immediately telling us we need to hate our family to be worthy of following Him, he tells us to count the cost.

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him… Luke 14:28-29.

He uses another analogy as well:

…what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?

So, let me lay out what serve learned so far. There is a cost to salvation, a great cost it would seem, a tremendous cost. But we don’t know what it is up front because it may be different for every believer. Yet, Jesus warns His followers to be prepared to pay for it. To count the costs before following Him. What are we missing?

Maybe, we may hope, there is a difference between simply finding salvation and following Christ? In other words, I just want to be counted in for the part of the plan where I go to heaven, but I don’t want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, not if it means such a high price to pay. I’m sorry… I don’t see that option in the Bible.

Jesus told the lame man whom he found in the Temple, “Go and sin no more.” He told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” He told the rich man, “sell everything you own and give it to the poor.” He told the scribe, essentially, “Give up your cushy bed in your luxurious home.” What is he telling you?

What does it cost you to follow Christ? He tells us the answer in Luke. 14:27 reads:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

What does the cross represent? It represents death. The cost of flirting Christ is your life. Don’t believe it? Jump down to the end of that chapter and read verse 33:

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

What price are you willing to pay, and why would we? We’ll look at those questions yet this week on Christian Holiness Daily.

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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

Best of Christian Holiness Daily: Change of Plans

August 11, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

Bad enough that he was a Samaritan, an outsider, shunned, looked down upon, the dregs of society, lowest of the low. More than that, he was a leper.

Levitical law separated the leper from the rest of society; lepers lived at a distance, never again to touch their loved ones, or to speak with them intimately. Never again could they hug their children or kiss their spouse.

Leprosy is highly contagious, and is spread by skin contact and through water droplets, like a cough or sneeze or a runny nose. Leprosy attacks the central nervous system, but its symptoms appear as tumors and disfigurement of the flesh and bone. Fingers twist in unnatural ways; hands become claws, and arms and legs become useless over time. The life of a leper is a painful and sad.

Lepers suffered so greatly that people in the time of Jesus naturally assumed that the afflicted must be paying for some terrible sin. And, why wouldn’t they think that? Two thousand years later, many of us still believe that way, to some extent.

It was near the end of His ministry when Jesus, passing through an unnamed village between Samaria and Jerusalem, was called on by ten such lepers. In keeping with the Law, they called from a distance. “Master, have mercy on us!”

His answer may seem strange to us, but that is only because we don’t live under the Law. “Go, and show yourselves to the priests.” Before a leper could rejoin society, he or she must have been certified to be free of the disease by a priest.

The Bible doesn’t say for sure, but I imagine an expression or two of doubt on the faces of the lepers, and perhaps a few questions among them. Still, they obeyed Him.

And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

– Luke 17:19

The healing must have been slow and progressive, rather than instantaneous. Before the lepers arrived at the Temple or synagogue, they found themselves healed. One of them – just one – was so grateful that he turned back to thank Jesus before he had made it to see the priest.

So grateful was he that he fell at the Master’s feet and worshiped Him.

“Didn’t I heal 10 people?” said Jesus. Of course, He knew the answer. “Where are the other 9? Only one has found it in his heart to return and praise God, and He is a Samaritan.” Christ once again reminded His followers that their prejudice against their neighbors is simply wrong.

“Get up, He tells the Samaritan. “Arise and go your way. Your faith has made you whole.”

The leper’s mission had changed. Before turning around to express his gratitude to Jesus, his mission had been to go see the priests. Now, healed and made whole, he received new inductions from Christ… to go his own way.

“You are made whole.”

And, here’s my point. Those who experience a real encounter with Christ are made whole, spiritually whole; theirs lives are renewed and made complete and they simply cannot continue to go on living like they once had. They are compelled to follow Jesus. Their missions change. Christ directs them in a different direction. They receive a change of plans. Theirs hearts have changed. Their entire lives change.

Have you been made whole? If not, you only need ask. Fall at His feet and praise Jesus. Ask Him to change Your heart. Your life will change. Forever.

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There Will Be No Turning Back

August 10, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

President Ulysses Grant has, in recent years, become a hero of mine. Many 20th Century historians painted the Civil War general and 18th president through the lens of politicians and military men who were jealous of him and biased against him. They called him a drunkard, and a naive politician. Newer biographers rely on the accounts of those who knew him best and from their research emerges a portrait of a diminutive, unassuming, self-confident, brilliant, pragmatic, and determined strategist.

Grant never sought command over the armed forces Union. He sought only a role commensurate with his West Point training and experience. He was certainly not pro-slavery, but had never taken a stand against it prior to the war. He had – in fact – worked his Missouri farm using slaves that were given to him by his father-in-law. Early in the war, though, he was compelled to take a radical stand. Long before Lincoln freed the slaves, General Grant declared that the nation could remain united only if all men were free. He sought only to lead his troops, but because of his dogged determination and brilliant mind, he soon led the North into new hope and onward toward victory.

Even before Grant defeated Lee, he became a hero. The press followed him everywhere. His likeness appeared on front pages from Washington to Maine. Both Democrats and Republicans talked of nominating him for President in 1864. Congress reinstituted the rank of Lieutenant General to honor him, a rank that was retired after George Washington died. Abraham Lincoln, who had ascertained that Grant abhorred the idea of running for president, concurred with Congress and made Grant General of the Army of the United States. If Grant did not seek greatness, it was certainly thrust upon him.

Though his life is largely forgotten by generations of Americans who can barely describe the Civil War or identify Lincoln, and though his life has been misrepresented in the media, I have to wonder what made him great. Why was Grant a hero and hailed as our country’s savior before he had even set upon the task of vanquishing the Confederate Army in the East?

While one can hardly reduce his appeal to one aspect, the man did possess one quality that stands out in every biography, good or bad, old or new. Even those histories that wrongly portray him as a drunkard mention this one quality as a key to his success. He never gave up.

In the Battle of the Wilderness, in early 1864, Grant – for the first time – faces off in battle against Robert E. Lee. Lee, as brilliant and cunning and determined as Grant, has the advantage of fighting at home. He knows the country, and the terrain. The people of Virginia are Lee’s family and neighbors. They support him. Grant is the invader, far from home, unfamiliar with the country, and faces odds that seem insurmountable. Lesser men than Grant would have fallen back. In fact, other Generals had encountered Lee had previously won victories in the same part of Virginia. Many Union Generals were wary of Lee; all of them respected him. Grant, though, was determined. It was his determination that at him apart from all others and accounted for much of his mass appeal.

Sure, other Union generals were determined, but Grant never faltered, even when the cards were stacked against him. One incident in the Wilderness Campaign illustrates that point. Grants armies were facing off against Lee’s in what is better described as a jungle than a wilderness. Old growth trees, impenetrable undergrowth, unfamiliarity with the lay of the land, fog and smoke were as much an ememy to Union troops as the Confederate soldiers. After initial setbacks, Grant regrouped and began again.

Grant had purposefully been silent, telling Lincoln little about the progress of the battle. One day, though, he discovered a reporter had decided to sneak through the lines to Washington to file a story. Grant called him aside and, in a hushed tone, said, “If you see the President, tell him for me, that whatever happens, there will be no turning back.”

That determined attitude, the short that resolves “No Turning Back,” is one thing missing in the lives of many Christians today. Determination… Discipline… And Faith are all a part of the walk with Christ. If we truly seek the heart and mind of Christ, we must first repent of our sins, trust in Jesus, allow His Spirit to live through us, allow Him to discipline us, and finally determine to follow Him. No turning back.

Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV)

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

An old hymn is worth recalling:

I have decided to follow Jesus;

No turning back, no turning back.

Tho’ none go with me, still I will follow,

Tho’ none go with me still I will follow,

Tho’ none go with me, still I will follow;

No turning back, no turning back.

My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;

My cross I’ll carry till I see Jesus,

My cross I’ll carry till I see Jesus;

No turning back, no turning back.

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