Posts Tagged: discipleship
“Spiritual Training Age”
To ask a very personal question, what is your training age?
I am seventy years old and still playing slow-pitch softball. However, even though it is a good thing (maybe) to be still playing, that doesn’t mean I’m playing well.
So, I’ve decided to actually concentrate and learn to play well—or, at least, better. I am beginning with conditioning exercises.
I watched a brief video online just now at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAOs91KGpYQ (accessed 09-10-2021), and plan to do the exercises today, and for many more todays. I hope they help.
But whether the exercises help me to play softball better or not, I was intrigued with an expression that the young trainer used: “training age”. A person’s training age is not how long he or she has been playing a sport, but how long that person has been actually training for the sport. In softball, I am not even a toddler in terms of training age. This is not a particularly flattering way of being young.
This training age expression invites me to think about more than softball. What is my training age in addiction recovery? What about my marriage training age and my friendship training age?
And then there is my training age in Christian discipleship. The question to ask is not “How long have I been a Christian?” Rather, the question I need to ask (but often don’t) is “How long have I been training in following Jesus Christ?”
Søren Kierkegaard wrote a book entitled Training in Christianity. In it he said that Jesus called followers, not admirers. One crucial aspect of the difference between admiring and following is our training. Admirers don’t follow or train. They just spectate. Discipleship is not a spectator sport.
I heard of an interviewer who asked a job applicant a crucial question: “Do you really have twenty years of experience, of just a year’s experience repeated nineteen times?” Perhaps I should ask the same question about my Christian discipleship.
“No Quick and Easy Spell”
(Here is a post I did a couple of years ago. It was good that I thought I would reprise it. I won’t say, “Enjoy!” since it is pretty brutal.)
I was sending my report and affirmation to my sponsor this morning. Here is my affirmation:
“Today, by God’s grace, I am taking good care of myself. This way, I will honor God and act caringly toward others.”
The word “caringly” was flagged on my spell checker. I thought this was the correct way to spell it, but figured that I had better check. So, I googled “spell caringly.”
Here is the first hit that appeared on my screen.
“Magic Spells for 2018 – Spells for Any & Every Need
Don’t Settle for the Ordinary: Order a Spell & Change Your Life. So Fast & Easy!
Service catalog: Love/Relationship Spells, Money Spells, Luck Spells
Absolutely guaranteed, or your money back!”
I was not prepared for that!
I rather liked the advertisement, although I did not go to the site. I liked the advert for a very simple reason: It encapsulates precisely what I would like to believe.
I would like to believe that there are simple and easy solutions to complex problems.
I would like to believe that, if I simply say the right things in the right order, accompanied by the right rituals, everything will go my way.
I really want to believe this! However, it is really difficult to make yourself believe something you don’t, even when you want to.
Well, no, on second thought, it’s not really that difficult to make myself believe in the fast and easy way. In fact, I do it all the time.
I want muscles without workouts, character without self-discipline, and good relationships without commitment. I want to be good at everything I do, without doing anything to actually become better.
And, of course, I want a money-back guarantee for everything—including life itself. I don’t need to go to a website to desire “fast and easy.” I am already there.
It’s not just me. As a society, we are addicted to speed, perhaps not the drug speed, but getting things quickly for sure. We are a microwave-loving people.
What is the remedy? I don’t know. But I do know this: There is no fast and easy solution to wanting fast and easy solutions.
Christians, above all, shouldn’t fall for fast-and-easy solutions, but often we do. We turn the cross of Christ into a fast and easy solution to our sin and guilt—past, present, and future. We fall into the trap of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” We forget that Jesus not only bore the cross himself. He also called us to do so. “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23, NIV).
It’s that “daily” part that usually gets me. I don’t want to take the slow and painful way, the cross, daily. I want to take it when I get around to it. But the truth is that I can either bear the cross now, today, or I can procrastinate until something fast and easy comes along. It won’t.
My choice! Yours too! But I really don’t want to “. . . settle for the ordinary”. Do you?
DTEB, “FOLLOW THE LEADER”
DTEB, “FOLLOW THE LEADER”
Jesus had just asked his disciples about his identity. “Who do other people say that I am?” (Mark8:27) After the disciples replied, Jesus asked them another question: “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” (v. 29) Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” (v.30)
But immediately, Jesus began to teach his disciples that he, the Messiah, must suffer and die. (v. 31)
Naturally, Peter did not like this turn of events. So, he took Jesus aside and basically said to Jesus, “Never!” (v. 32) Jesus proceeded to call Peter “Satan,” since Peter was opposing Jesus. (The word “satan” basically means “adversary.”)
It is a profoundly strange and disturbing account. If you do not find it strange and disturbing, you probably haven’t taken it very seriously.
And then, as if all this isn’t enough, Jesus calls the whole crowd and all his disciples together in order to generalize his teaching. This business of suffering and death isn’t just for Jesus. It isn’t just for Peter and the boys. It is for us all.
“34And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34-38)
R. Alan Cole has some simple but wonderful words concerning Jesus’ words about taking up our cross and following him.
“So the Lord warns all the crowd, not just his professed disciples, that to follow him means to deny all natural inclinations and to ‘shoulder one’s stake’. ‘Stake’ in modern English preserves the association of shameful death better than cross does. Compare 10:39 for the equally solemn words of Jesus to James and John as to the cost of discipleship. The thought is plain to every child playing the game of ‘follow my leader’, in which there is only one rule, that no follower shirks going to any place where the leader has first gone. Ultimately, to the Christian, this following of Jesus becomes the hope of heaven, since our leader has already gone there (Heb. 6:19–20): but first comes the cross. ‘No cross, no crown’ is a pithy piece of theology which must have been ever-present in the minds of the early Christians at Rome and other centres of persecution.”[1]
But, of course, following Jesus is no child’s game, is it? Still, there really is only one rule. Cole is right about that. The rule is FOLLOW JESUS!
And where does Jesus go? He goes to the lost, to the least. He goes to help and not to judge. Eventually, he goes to the cross.
I don’t like this aspect of Christianity. I really don’t. I like feeling good. I like having my own way. I like the way of self-affirmation, rather than the way of self-denial.
On the other hand, this self-denial aspect is central to the Christian faith. And notice this: Ultimately, the goal of self-denial is that we might find ourselves in Christ. Those who deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus “save their souls.” I take it that the soul here is another term for our real, essential selves. When you decide to follow someone, the proper question is not “Are you taking me on a road that is pleasant and easy?” The question is “Are you taking me somewhere good.” The destination is the thing.
Human
wisdom says, “Get all you can while the gettin’ is good!” Jesus says the opposite. “Give up everything.” Who am I going to choose to believe?
[1]R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, TNTC 1; 2d, IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 211.
DTEB, “SITTIN’ AROUND, WAITIN’ FOR SOMETHING GOOD TO HAPPEN”
Don’t!
Sit around and wait for something good to happen, that is. Make it happen!
We all want good things, but I’ve noticed something about myself: I don’t want to actually have to do anything for those good things to come to me. I want to be zapped with goodness.
This may or may not be a common human reality. You decide. But I am beginning to suspect that there is no goodness zapper.
The problem with knowing even a little bit about biblical languages is that you sometimes discover more than you wanted to discover. For example . . .
I receive a verse of the day from the You Version folks on my smart phone. Today’s verse was Psalm 37:4:
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your hearts’ desires.”
So, I decided to take a look at the Hebrew, just for giggles. I ended up not giggling.
The Hebrew verb that is used for “take delight” is a Hebrew form (stem is the technical term) that refers to “something you do to yourself.” Think, in terms of “I hit myself with a hammer.” The first three words of that sentence could be said in one word in Hebrew. So, the first part of this verse is saying, “Delight yourself in the Lord.”
So what? So this!
What this verse is saying is that God is not going to delight us. No! Instead, we are responsible for delighting ourselves in God.
This is, at first blush, unspeakably dismal. Do you mean to tell me that God isn’t going to just drop delight on me from the Heavens? Do you mean that I have to be active in my following of Jesus. I’m afraid that I only want to follow Jesus, if I’m allowed to ride in a comfy limousine. However, the last time I read the gospels, I noticed that the only time Jesus is recorded as riding anything, it was a donkey. And he was riding it triumphantly (??) into Jerusalem in order to be crucified.
Here is the bottom line: The Christian faith is not for sissies of either sex. Delight there is. But it is a delight that I must pursue myself.
And then, I came to another equally dismal insight. What if God granting the desires of my heart doesn’t mean what I want it to mean? What if it means that God will give me proper, healthy desires in my heart? Andy Stanley says that our problem is that we want what we want, and we want it right now! What if God gives me wants and desires that I don’t want or desire?
So, perhaps I have looked at this verse completely wrongly. Perhaps it is cold comfort or no comfort at all. Perhaps it is a most unwelcome truth.
But Truth doesn’t come to us to comfort us. Truth comes to us to wake us up.
And yet, I do feel strangely comforted by this Truth. There’s something I can actually do to know God better. If God’s Word says that I must delight myself in God, then there must be a way that I can. I just need to figure that out. And, by God’s grace, I will!
And as for the desires of my heart, I’ve often actually gotten what I wanted, only to find out that it left me feeling hollow inside, less alive, a billion light years away from God, from other people, even from the man I wanted to be.
Maybe it’s time for me to do it God’s way.
“SPELLS: DON’T SETTLE FOR THE ORDINARY!”
I was sending my report and affirmation to my sponsor this morning. Here is my affirmation:
“Today, by God’s grace, I am taking good care of myself. This way, I will honor God and act caringly toward others.”
The word “caringly” was flagged on my spell checker. I thought this was the correct way to spell it, but figured that I had better check. So, I googled “spell caringly.”
Here is the first hit that appeared on my screen.
“Magic Spells for 2018 – Spells for Any & Every Need
Don’t Settle for the Ordinary: Order a Spell & Change Your Life. So Fast & Easy!
Service catalog: Love/Relationship Spells, Money Spells, Luck Spells
Absolutely guaranteed, or your money back!”
I was not prepared for that!
I rather liked the advertisement, although I did not go to the site. I liked the advert for a very simple reason: It encapsulates precisely what I would like to believe.
I would like to believe that there are simple and easy solutions to complex problems.
I would like to believe that, if I simply say the right things in the right order, accompanied by the right rituals, everything will go my way.
I really want to believe this! However, it is really difficult to make yourself believe something you don’t, even when you want to.
Well, no, on second thought, it’s not really that difficult to make myself believe in the fast and easy way. In fact, I do it all the time.
I want muscles without workouts, character without self-discipline, and good relationships without commitment. I want to be good at everything I do, without doing anything to actually become better.
And, of course, I want a money-back guarantee for everything—including life itself. I don’t need to go to a website to desire “fast and easy.” I am already there.
It’s not just me. As a society, we are addicted to speed, perhaps not the drug speed, but getting things quickly for sure. We are a microwave-loving people.
What is the remedy? I don’t know. But I do know this: There is no fast and easy solution to wanting fast and easy solutions.
Christians, above all, shouldn’t fall for fast-and-easy solutions, but often we do. We turn the cross of Christ into a fast and easy solution to our sin and guilt—past, present, and future. We fall into the trap of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” We forget that Jesus not only bore the cross himself. He also called us to do so. “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23, NIV).
It’s that “daily” part that usually gets me. I don’t want to take the slow and painful way, the cross, daily. I want to take it when I get around to it. But the truth is that I can either bear the cross now, today, or I can procrastinate until something fast and easy comes along. It won’t.
My choice! Yours too! But I really don’t want to “. . . settle for the ordinary”. Do you?
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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