What Word?

 But the Lord said to me, 'Leave Jerusalem, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. The crowd listened till Paul came to that word, then with one voice they shouted, 'Away with such a fellow1 Kill him! He isn't fit to live!' " Acts 22:21-22...."Most of us, somewhere deep inside of us, have a bottom line, a line we would hardly dare to cross. We like to choose our areas of sacrifice. We can't. Discipleship doesn't work that way." Chris Tiegreen

Discipleship doesn't work that way, but we've somehow convinced ourselves that it does. More, we like to continue to call ourselves His disciples even as we do. Do we, you and I have a "bottom line" when it comes to following Him? Is there an area, an unsurrendered area, where we have decided that to follow Him into it is too much for Him to ask? Is there a point where He might speak a word that will cause us to cease to listen? A point where we too, like the crowd Paul preached to, will turn against Him?

These are hard questions, but they're questions that we have got to decide upon our answer before Christ brings us to the place of His asking. John Bevere said that for the believer, the decision must be made that before He asks, indeed, commands anything of us, we have already determined that we will. That our answer is already written upon our hearts. That we have already said "Yes," to whatever it is. Whatever....it....is.

Our soft western Christianity and "easy believism" has convinced us that Jesus would never dream of asking us to follow Him into an area of life that will bring us pain, intense pain, and loss. At times, devastating loss. Christ calls us to "leave all and follow Him." We say that we agree to that, but in our hearts, we don't really believe He'll call us to actually do so. He knows that we love our families, our children, our mates. Now, He will never violate His word and demand that we abandon any of them, but He will, very likely will, call us to follow in ways that may, will, cause them pain. Leading us into places that not only cost us, but them as well. No one wants to see their loved ones hurt, but His call to us is to trust Him in it, to know that the short term pain will be outweighed by the long term gain. A chinese believer known as Brother Yun, who suffered incredible tortures at the hands of the communist government in China, said that "the cross of Christ is soaked in blood. If we choose to pick it up, it will be soaked in ours as well." That is a far from enticing invitation, but it is a true one. Our blood, whether figuratively or literally, will soak the cross we carry for Him. Too many of us know this, and it's why we come to lay it down somewhere along the way.

Here in the American church, we've created "Kingdom Celebrities." Celebrity preachers, singers, and "leaders." I don't think most of them will enjoy any celebrity in heaven. The true heroes of the faith in eternity will be men and women we never knew anything of. People who suffered the loss of all things for the joy of knowing and following Him. They knew the cost was great, but it was nothing in comparison with the fellowship of suffering they knew in Him. Do you and I know that reality today?

What's the word that you'll turn back on? What's your bottom line? What's mine? If we let Him search us, He will bring it to the surface, and then, it is our choice as to whether we surrender it, all of it, to Him, or turn back. What will we do? Go on with Him into whatever and wherever He leads, or......turn back?

Blessings,

Pastor O