Radical Discipleship

Our society is gone off the rails! The recent suicide of Jiah Khan, a famous and young and upcoming Bollywood actress, summarizes the blight of our choices, values, ethics and lifestyle. All the more add on the rapes, the levels of ethnic hatred, years of revenge, and the changing times of sad and severe social problems…and all this becomes a vicious mix of a humanity gone berserk.

For these last days, I believe only radical discipleship is the answer. What do I mean? The word ‘radical’ has really become a contradiction these days. We immediately think of somebody who is violent and against the norms of what we believe, desiring to establish their own system with force and killing. This is not really so!

We need to get back to Biblical basics. The more radical we are the more humility and teachability we must have, the more we must become like Jesus. We then need to have a look at the early church, their Godly zeal, their way of love and their heart to worship and follow the Lord Jesus. When we look at the twelve, and what Jesus taught them all those years He was with them, we are surprised by their flaws and their style of discipleship.

We see Thomas – he was a daring doubter. He found it very difficult to believe the truth about Christ but he was still a disciple and used greatly by God. We see Peter – he had all the right words all the time it seems! He thought he knew everything there was to know about discipleship but more often, when push came to shove, he blew out with some great giant failures of faith. But he was still a disciple and used greatly by God. Then we see Judas Iscariot – the money-minded believer. He had a strong sense of economic priorities; he was a very forthright man, but a disillusioned betrayer at the end. But he was still a disciple and used greatly by God. Then there were the rest and many more…! And so it is, for each one of us too; we will each embody a different style of discipleship. But that does not matter. What matters is our heart to follow Jesus despite our environment, our family background and our various cultures.

In the last forty years of following Jesus I have found that there are no degrees of greatness in being a disciple of Jesus, as so many think today. And then no one way is better – they are all just different. And so it is with us that we all need to discover our own pattern in following Jesus. This happens when we get ever desirous of just following and obeying Him simply and without any inhibitions.

I wish to start a short series where I can bare my heart on becoming a radical disciple for Jesus. There are two words that God has put in my heart this season. The first word is ‘recovery’ and the second is ‘uncompromising’. Prophetically speaking I believe that there is going to be a return and a fresh wave of the recovery of spiritual truth, and revelation.

A true disciple of Jesus is uncompromising. What I mean is this…uncompromising in the ways of the Father. He is jealously obedient and totally committed and walking in the freedom of the Word and the Spirit.
Next week I will talk about what I believe our Community needs to recover. Too many celebrity Christians with their own private mandates have catapulted the church to places of leanness and languidity and the damage has been colossal. Some damage however cannot be recovered, but heaven can work around that to restore and revive.

Looking briefly at the New Testament…if Jesus had failed, or if the other disciples had got disillusioned, they could have gone back to their old trades and being good Jews. Peter, James and John could have gone back to being fishermen. But Matthew is a great example of radicalness. He deserted his job working for the authorities. He got up there and then and just walked away from it and there is, of course, no way they would ever have taken him back. He was too irresponsible…they would say! He was not to be trusted anymore! He had no loyalty to the company! Such was Matthew’s absolute commitment to Christ. He was so radical, he was so unswerving in his desire to follow Jesus, that he was prepared to sacrifice all the security, all the wealth, all the prosperous living that he had ever known. He was prepared to throw caution to the wind and say, ‘OK Jesus, I don’t know what it entails, I don’t know where I am going – but I will follow you.”

Hey! What about you? You need to get an answer.

More next time. Blessings always.

Shalom,

Pastor Willie