OK, this honesty thing might get me in trouble, but I’m going ahead anyway.
There are some things in the Bible and in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ that I run away from.
Not overtly. Oh no, I’m far too savvy for that. I do my running discreetly. Call me the Discreet Runner. (A book title? A movie? You decide.) So discreetly I try to get away from some of the more challenging bits in the Bible that my life has to apply.
Yet however swift and discreetly I run, just when I think it’s safe, the very same thing will smack me upside the head. Its presence is relentless, just like the mummy that stumbles after you and persists in the chase even when you thought you were well rid of it.
The thing I look to do a discreet runner from most, is Jesus’ demand in discipleship that says unless I am willing to die to myself, take up my cross and follow Him I cannot be his disciple. That condition is non-negotiable. Oh I can love all those nice bits about loving me and dying for me and all that jazz, but then the deal about being like Him requires me to die. It requires me to relinquish control and let the same power that rose Jesus from the dead fill me and guide me in the way I should go.
It blatantly insists that I give up.
This song was playing in my head to inspire this post, and was another one of those little things that said as much as I try I cannot outrun the requirements of discipleship. It remains the same whichever way I like it. If I’m serious about this Jesus business, I MUST give up and give control over to Him – completely.
Blessed is the man that can do that relatively easily every day of his life. I would contentiously suggest that such a man has not had a life-changing encounter with God. For such an encounter helps us understand just how painstaking this process is scheduled to be. Giving up all that control, giving up all that autonomy. Giving it up in total for Jesus to take over completely. Daunting task. Jesus taking over your habits, your behaviour, your mannersims, your pastimes, your diet, your relationships, your conversations. Wowsers, that is a whole lot of stuff we’re giving up.
Yet the alternative – disobedience … rebellion to the Creator and Sustainer of the universe is possibly infinitely worse than the action of being lead by the Spirit. So I am reminded that sometimes it is the hardest things in the world that we need reminding of, so that we can measure progress.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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