What does it mean to follow Christ?

 What challenge does Jesus lay out for those who follow Him? In reading through the gospels I find three attributes of His followers.

•      They believe certain things. (John 3:16)

•      Especially the most important truths, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died for our sins.

•      They have a relationship with Him. (John 10:14)

•      They know His voice. (John 10:27). They experience His presence and empowerment in their life.

•      They obey Him. (Luke 6:46)

•      The key obedience is responding His voice when He says “Open the door”. (Revelation 3:10)

The good news is that Jesus came to the earth to save humans from being lost in sin. The four spiritual laws and the Romans Road both summarize this plan of salvation.

•      God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. (John 3:16)

•      Humanity is tainted by sin and is therefore separated from God. As a result, we cannot know God’s wonderful plan for our lives. (Romans 3:23, 6:23)

•      Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for our sin. Through Jesus Christ, we can have our sins forgiven and restore a right relationship with God, through the blood that He shed when He was crucified. (Romans 5:8)

•      We must place our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior in order to receive the gift of salvation and know God’s wonderful plan for our lives. (John 1:12)

It is important to understand what Christianity is not:

•      It is not keeping a bunch of rules to pass a legal review of our behavior. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

•      It is not earning God’s blessing through good works. Rather, God has prepared good works for us to walk in. (Ephesians 2:10)

•      It’s not a negotiation - I’ll do this if You will do that. (Examples: going to church; donating money; good works) (Isaiah 66:1)

What are the reasons people do not choose Jesus?

•      They don’t know the gospel.

•      Jesus sent His followers to go preach to every person. (Matthew 28:19-20) The job isn’t done yet.

•      They don’t believe the gospel.

•      Numerous books have been written to document evidence for the trustworthiness of the Scriptures and basic truths about Christ, e.g., The Case for Christ, Who Moved the Stone?

•      Lack of personal connection or experience with Jesus.

•      My personal experience is that anyone who sincerely seeks a relationship with Christ will receive palpable confirmation from Him. (Jeremiah 29:13)

•      Struggle with some theological issue, such as reconciling a loving God with the problem of pain, or difficult doctrines that are hard to understand.

•      Although the Bible offers answers, they are sometimes unsatisfying to our human understanding and difficult to accept. We have to accept the transcendence of Jesus over these questions - that His love, holiness, and power are more important. (Job 38-41)

•      Rejection of the gospel. Some understand that to receive Christ will entail them giving up lifestyle behaviors that conflict with His. I see two flavors of this.

•      An accurate belief that they do not have the strength to change. The good news is that the indwelling Christ empowers us to live out His life in our bodies. (Philippians 2:13)

•      A love of a specific vice that trumps a desire to live rightly, or to go to heaven, or to enjoy fellowship with God. Sadly, God can only deal with this by letting nature take its course. Every sin has consequences built in by the law of cause and effect. These consequences are the final warnings to the lost soul. (1 Corinthians 5:5)

So, the bottom line is that every person chooses. My prayer is that you will choose Christ.

Satan’s rebellion against love

Matthew 4 and Luke 4 both relate the story of Satan confronting Jesus after forty days spent in the desert. Satan tempts Christ in three ways:

•  Turning stones into bread
•  Forcing the angels to physically intervene to demonstrate God’s protective love
•  Receiving the kingdoms of the earth

 What is the real point?

•      Jesus’ response to Satan’s challenge to turn stones into bread was to quote Deuteronomy 8:3. What is this telling us? The priority of Spiritual connection such as hearing God’s spoken word over physical nutrition for sustenance. More generally, the paramount importance of a direct and experienced connection with God over the things of the world - money, food, houses, land. God can easily supply these things. Our challenge is to live trusting in His spoken words. We find a similar  thought when Jesus multiplied the loaves in John 6, and then told His listeners that He is the bread of life (John 6:36). Not just physical life, but eternal life — fellowship with God for all eternity. Satan had rejected that eons earlier. Satan’s existence continued, but apart from God he was eternally damned to a self-absorbed rejection of the agape life.

  •      When Satan challenged Jesus to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple quoting Psalm 91:11-12, Jesus’ response was to put the promise into perspective by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Satan tempted Jesus to claim a promise that was legitimately His, because He (and perhaps only Jesus) met the conditions of Psalm 91:1-2, 9, and 14. But that is not the whole of Scripture. Jesus knew that a long life (Psalm 91:16) was not what the Father had called Him to, because the redemption of humankind would entail Him enduring the punishment due to the wicked (Isaiah 53:6). But His response was to refer to Deuteronomy 6 (You shall not put Yahweh to the test), in which Moses referred to Exodus 17:7; in that circumstance Moses called the place where the Israelites grumbled Massah (meaning test) because the Israelites questioned whether God brought them into the wilderness to die of thirst. This temptation was not about water in the desert, but in context, Jesus was telling us that trust in God does not mean things will always go smoothly. To create a crisis to try to force God to intervene is the presumption of arrogating His role to ourselves. He may allow trials and tribulations for His purposes, but for us to create them ourselves would be to play God - which Satan is trying to do.

•      Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and offered them if Jesus would bow down to worship him. We can relate to this Faustian temptation. Is it any different when shysters promise heaven on earth if we sell our souls to their worldly ways? Whether selling vacation timeshares or proposing a new political order, the scent of sulphur is palpable to those attuned to the Master’s voice. Jesus knew He could not bypass the cross to bring the kingdom of God on earth. But the nature of Satan’s offer to Jesus was insidious: he was telling the God of creation, agape incarnate, to bow down to the rebel, the author of lies. If Jesus had done so, He would have changed His very nature by partaking of Satan’s character, seeking to bring about the Kingdom of God by worshipping Satan, and thereby becoming like him. The essence of this temptation — to achieve “good” by worldly means — He rejected.

This confrontation may have reproduced on earth a similar event in eternity, eons earlier, when Satan rebelled. The outcome would not be any different on earth than it was in heaven, because Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Father. But the connection here gives us a hint to that greater mystery - why does God allow suffering? Jesus told His disciples to take up their crosses to follow Him. (Matthew 16:24) God’s purposes are often advanced through suffering, both in our souls and on earth as a whole. Perhaps this voluntary self-sacrifice for the sake of others - God’s agape love - can only mature in this way; and Satan rejects this truth. The easy way out - sell your soul and receive what you want now - is Satan’s counterfeit. And that is the choice we each face, to embrace God’s agape love - sacrificial service to others - or to emulate Satan’s self-serving approach to existence. And ultimately we will reap the fruit of our decision.