Uncompromising Discipleship

Another excerpt from My All for Him:

For a long time I could not find the key, the solution, to my questions: What is true discipleship? What does Jesus want? On the one hand, He calls us to an uncompromising discipleship. He calls us to forsake everything, to lose our lives for His sake. He calls us to leave father and mother. On the other hand, we are supposed to honour our fathers and mothers...

...I wondered. What did God want?...I wanted to tread His path, no matter what it cost...He had to make me see the truth about myself before He could show me the right way. He had to show me that I was a poor sinner...The Lord granted me a penitent and crying heart. This experience drove me into the arms of Jesus...It was He Himself--not any particular teaching or any religious doctrine, but rather He Himself who was the answer.

...Yes, all my questions had been answered and all my problems solved. Now I was truly free....I now had part in everything that belongs to this earth and to the whole universe. My love had become all-comprehending, but my love had also remained close to God and bound to the centre of creation.

Just as my life had been unhappy and torn with inner conflicts before I found this answer, so everything was much more happy and more natural afterwards. My life was filled with joy, because I had found the One who loved my soul and whom I was permitted to love above all else with all my soul, with all my strength, with all my being. I found in Jesus my greatest Love, my most intimate Friend, and for almost thirty-five years since then I have gone through life with Him, and over and over again I have told Him how much I love Him, who is my Bridegroom.

Good Christian teaching is a good thing, and I've been blest to be surrounded by it. But sometimes, there's a temptation to put the teaching before the Teacher. The Teacher, Jesus, sometimes, often times, confounds us with His ways. We want to quickly figure out the 'lesson' He's trying to teach us. But sometimes, there's nothing we can do but wait for Him to reveal the 'lesson' in stages, sometimes painfully slowly. It's not that we're failing the school of Christianity. It's not that we're flunking out as disciples. It's not a matter of sin or not sin; it's not black and white. God, in His mercy, just blows our minds, and shows us, time and again, that He is God and we are not. When we can learn to rejoice in this, we will know that we are rejoicing in Him and not in our own self-knowledge, intellect, and self-will. B. Schlink says she "was filled with joy" not when she understood 'teaching' but when she realized how much she didn't understand, and this admission humbled her and brought her to Jesus. Then, she was filled with joy and love and freedom.

Do we want to love God so that we might understand Him and have our way, or do we love Him and want to know Him simply that we might love and worship Him?

There are many things each of us does not understand about God and His mysterious ways, but this unknowing need not prevent us from going deeper with Christ and loving Him fully. It was Adam's and Eve's desire to fully know that brought about the Fall. Can we surrender to this unknowing, and count it as God's security rather as a reason for us to be insecure? It's a challenge in the world we live in today and as Fallen individuals. But God gives us His grace and His Son, that we might be content in being the Father's children, taken care of by Him:

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. -Romans 3: 22-4.

God is good. Amen.