by J.L. Morgan
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What are Christians supposed to be doing?
What are we to be doing?
This question is asked more often than not. Christians today seem like chickens running around with their heads cut off.
“Why God, why won’t you just tell me what to do?”
It’s not their fault, you know, the masses are only doing what they are told. They say a little prayer, hear an interesting pep talk on Sundays, and feel like they have been recharged enough to get them through the week till next Sunday.
There has crept in this little idea that the point of Christianity is to let God bring out the best version of You there is.
Today’s mainstream Christianity tells you that you make mistakes, but hey, everyone does. You’re just grinding in the hamster wheel like everyone else. You know the difference between you and the happy hamsters? The happy hamsters are better at lying to themselves.
We often wonder why God is so silent. We hear about others “hearing from God”, so why not me?
Some even take it so far as to announce that their intuition is God talking to them. We have this fascination today with “hearing” from God.
While it is true there were prophets and people in the Bible who “heard” the voice of God, a lot of the times man encounters God it is usually a very visual and sometimes physical phenomenon.
Think of Abraham, who was visited many times by God, Jacob and his ladder, Joseph and Daniel with their dreams… Saul on the Road to Damascus.
There is a reason God wants us to See as well as hear His words to us.
His Words are in the Bible.
The truth of the Gospel is this;
It’s not about you,
It has never been about you,
The whole story is in fact about an Holy, Just, and Righteous God who will have His way through to the end.
It is about a God who has no need of anything. By His very nature He does not need you. He has no need for me, or for anyone or anything. He is Wholly and Complete in and of Himself.
This is what Jesus came to show us, that He, and only He could fulfill all the requirements of the Law. Because no mere mortal man could pay the penalty of offending The Holy God in His Garden. Adam and Eve committed a very severe offense in that Garden. They not only disobeyed their Creator, but they brought to question His very Nature, His very Character.
He has kept His promise, those born under the curse are condemned to die. And all have died since then, save for 2 people.
But in the Grace and Mercy of the Almighty God He has decreed that anyone who would disciple after Jesus, to them He will grant eternal life with Him.
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?
The example was displayed to us by Jesus Himself. And why are we to follow after His leadership? Because He is our Shepherd, and more. The Bible tells us that Born Again believers are in fact His Bride. We are to Him what every husband hopes his wife will be.
Jesus is only coming back once, and when He does it will be to claim His Betrothed from the clutches of the dragon. (Does this story sound familiar). So that He may marry her and have a great wedding feast. There is a reason for so many distressed damsels in history, it is the quintessential story arc, and they all get it from the Christian Bible.
What does a soon to be Bride do? I will let you use your imaginations. Men you will never be able to name enough items for preparation. And women, you know there were 1500 other things you would have done to make it better. For the Bride, it is her most special day (or it should be). From the time they are little girls they live in hope and anticipation for the day they will marry their prince.
Nonetheless, the point is that the betrothed should be ever vigilant in our preparation for Him. Our job is to mirror Him when He gets back. He wants His bride to be spotless, and we are to do everything we can on this side of glory. We will not reach perfection, but we better be found trying our best to mirror His perfection. We better be found following His Words and make sure we have oil for our lamps.
To be a disciple means to be in His Word and applying it to our daily lives. In fact begging for Jesus to remove the very stains and sins we have caused.
But in order to do this, you need the Holy Spirit to guide you. It is the power of the Holy Spirit within you that propels you forward everyday begging to be better than yesterday.
To try, to struggle, and to fail, to do all that the Bible asks you to do on your own is futile. You, a mere human, cannot do it, that’s the point of Jesus showing us that even if we thought a wrong thought about a neighbor we are filthy dung compared with God’s Sovereignty.
The cares and worries of this world are blinding those who would be christians. They have been led astray into believing that the Creator of the Universe was somehow here to act as a magic genie at worst, and an insurance policy at best.
The truth is Jesus let us know that the Father is Spiritual, that in and of itself elevates Him miles above your earthly bodies. If you want to worship the Father, you have to worship Him in Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, you cannot worship the Father, your motions, and prayers go off into oblivion, because they are earthly.
The only way to be possessed, and I want to be clear, the Holy spirit wants to in fact possess your body, is to accept that Jesus and the Father are one, if you See Jesus, you See the Father.
Jesus came here to fulfill a law that God had established thousands of years before with the house of Jacob, or Israel. The fulfillment of that Law in fact claimed the very souls of those who would accept the payment and turn over their lives in exchange for eternal life.
The cost of Discipleship is a very weighty subject. One must consider the costs, what you are going to have to give up, if you do in fact want eternal life.
It means a total devotion of heart, soul, mind, and strength to Jesus. It means that He now in fact has control over every aspect of your life. And it also means He will test your desires in the fire to see what you need to eliminate from your life.
Being a Disciple of Jesus today is every bit as much a sacrifice as His earthly disciples learned. They in fact left everything they had to follow Him. The rich young ruler couldn’t do it. The man who wanted to first go and bury his father couldn’t do it. In fact even in His darkest hour His own earthly disciples abandoned Him, and He had to show them many things after His resurrection.
It is not an easy road. Wide is the path which leads to destruction, narrow is the way that leads through Christ to eternal life.
STAY IN THE LOOP
