Disciple

"I'm a Christian," says 76% of America. Okay, cool. That's nice. But what does that really mean? I hear the phrase quite often in my home country, and am a Christian myself, yet I still wonder what people mean when they say they're Christians. Think about it for a minute. Do you even know either?

I think that we subconsciously picture Christians as nothing more than those who attend church every so often. Unfortunately, this image is true of more people than it should be. And while those people may have accepted Christ as their savior, they most certainly are not living that fact out. I myself am guilty of this. (Though I try quite hard to be the best Christian that I can.) So in wondering "What is a Christian, really?" it's only logical to go straight to the source: Jesus Christ Himself.

In Matthew 16, Jesus says that

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."

(Matthew 16:24)

Do modern Christians seem to do that? Do we deny ourselves? Do we take up our crosses and chase Jesus? No. Not most of us, anyways. I've met far too few Christians who, for the most part, live out their faith. But even those people don't necessarily have the lives that Jesus intended for them to. (Not that I've got the best life that Jesus could have for me; I'm still working on that.)

As we all know, Jesus goes the extra mile. And believe me, it's not just in physical tasks--it's also in spiritual ones. Here's the next mile of true discipleship:

... "He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me."

(Matthew 10:38)

It's not just that Jesus would rather you not follow if you didn't "take up your cross." It's that you're not worthy if you don't. Picture this: you've got a group of people that you love. They don't really know you, but you know them. And God has given you a deep, eternal love for them. This love is so powerful and inexplicably indestructible that you would do anything to save these people. Anything. You would die for them.

So let's say you die. You sacrifice yourself, only to find that, while some are grateful, many are not. Many people mock you and hate you, and you don't know why. After all, you gave up your life for theirs.

Here's a shocker: I just put you in Jesus' shoes. And you'd agree with me that, if you did something like that for someone, the least that you could ask of them is that they spend their lives, which they only have because you sacrificed yours, to spreading your message of love and life. Wouldn't you expect others to repay you for what you did? I'm assuming so.

So, even if you're just a "casual Christian", your "goal" is to become like Christ, correct? To follow Him? To become His disciple?

Jesus says, as recorded in Luke 14, verse 33,

..."Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple."

And that's where the tough questions come in. We begin to wonder at who we really are. We compare what we say we believe to what we actually live, and we see that they pale. They are oftentimes not enough alike. This is the time when we look at this verse and have to notice that Jesus doesn't merely say what He prefers. He says what is true. You cannot follow Him if you do not abandon yourself. If you don't become a spiritual martyr (ooh... that shall become a post at a later date!), then you can't be alive in Christ. If you're not practicing what you preach, you are not being a true disciple. (It's a tough pill to swallow. I myself am having a hard time with it.)

He touched their eyes and said, "Become what you believe."

~ Matthew 9:29

If you read the back story to that verse, you'll see that there were two blind men who wanted Jesus to heal them; they wanted to see. Jesus asked them if they truly believed He was capable. Eagerly, they said, "Yes!" Enter verse 29. He heals them. And then commands them to become faith. So, here it is. Straight from our Savior Himself. "Become what you believe."

If you believe Jesus is the Christ, and have accepted Him as your Savior, the next step is to become a disciple. The next step is to forsake yourself. Going back to where we are a few paragraphs ago, most of us aren't actually disciples. We may think we are. But then you have to ask yourself:

Have we forsaken everything for Him? Actually, have we forsaken anything?

A true Christian is always a disciple in the making. We will stumble, yes. We will not be perfect. But we will work towards discipleship. Let discipleship be one of our main goals. Selah.

Well, this was an incredibly long post. If you're still with me, I take it as even more proof towards God's existence. If you managed to stay reading and not bored by my somewhat circular entry (I'm quite tired, though I shouldn't make excuses), I recommend these two links:

What is Discipleship? -- a great resource. It explains rather clearly what I so convolutedly attempted to communicate.

What did Jesus mean when He said "take up your cross"? -- again, great resource. It goes into further detail about taking up one's cross.