One of the things that I think disturbs me the most about Christians (including myself) is that we think that Christianity is about what we can get from God.
Our prayers are slanted that way, “Bless me…give me…help me.”
Our motives are slanted that way, “If I do this for God then He may bless me by giving me…”
BUT…the Scriptures teach so clearly that when we become a follower of Jesus we are saying to Him, “I will submit to what YOU want me to be…I will do what YOU want me to do.”
AND…MOST people do not have a problem with believing the sentence above—UNTIL it requires us to actually make some sort of sacrifice.
- We will follow Jesus…UNTIL it impacts our dating life or marriage.
- We will follow Jesus…UNTIL it begins to impact us financially.
- We will follow Jesus…UNTIL it begins to impact our time.
- We will follow Jesus…UNTIL it begins to impact our social schedule.
BUT…one of the things I am seeing over and over again in the Scriptures is that a true follower of Jesus Christ held nothing as sacred (Acts 4:32-37 as an example—WOW). When someone in the Scriptures submitting their life to Christ…it was complete and total surrender and not “submission based on convenience.”
The question I am praying and wrestling through personally right now is, “Is there any area of my life that I have declared ‘off limits’ to God?” I challenge you to do the same.
Jesus, our leader, SACRIFICED…and He calls us to do the same (you know, the whole “take up your cross and follow me” thing!) If I am going to claim His name then I’ve got to be about HIS fame and not my own.
Submission equals sacrifice!
One more thing on this to pastors/church leaders. I think we’ve GOT to teach this…we can’t be afraid to ask people to radically commit to Jesus. YES, people will get ticked…the ones who don’t want to commit. We cannot water down the Gospel and reduce to Christianity to, “come to church every other week, give if you feel like it, serve if you want to, invite friends to church if it doesn’t cost you socially” and so on!
Submission equals sacrifice! That’s what the Scriptures teach…that’s what we must teach AND MODEL as well.