As I am sitting here on my Saturday afternoon studying the things of God, I want to answer a question. I believe the gospel very clearly teaches that if one is to be born again and inherit eternal life that the must take up their cross and follow Jesus. So the question might be posed "What does that mean to take up my cross? What must I actually do in order to inherit eternal life?"
We can teach the principles and put forth the theoretical outline of heeding the call, but for the unredeemed what does this mean for them in their actual life? The simple answer is to give your life to Christ. They need to submit and commit themselves to him. However, this still might lead to more questions of what that actually means. In our society we are so far gone from the idea to actually submit to a king or authority, people really might have a spiritual and intellectual problem with understanding this concept. Do we give them a nice little prayer to say and hope the Holy Spirit does the rest? Or do we do what Jesus said and make Disciples, baptizing them and teaching them his commands. I want to look at this in three points since he gave us three.
1 . Make the disciple- present to them the gospel and tell them they now must surrender everything in their life to Christ. This does not mean they will become perfect people. This doesn't mean the very next day they wake up all of their addictions will disappear. They might disappear as many times one has an addiction to fill a void in their life and Jesus now fills that void, but there may be something more physical or psychologically engrained in them that this may take time. However, this I believe is where they cry out to Jesus and ask him to save them and lead them. They need to cry out. I hesitate to give anyone an example prayer as I believe this takes away from the genuiness of the cry. This can also lead them to make an idol out of the prayer itself and begin looking at the idea that the prayer saved them and not Jesus. In someways this could be described as a work based faith because they said a special prayer that led to their salvation.
2. Baptize them- there is nothing that justifies us through baptism but it displays the disciples submission and commitment to Christ.
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6
3. Teach them what I have commanded you- What did Jesus command? Well, this is a very detailed study, but essentially he commanded them to be active ministering people. The idea of getting somebody saved so they can come and sit in a pew every Sunday is not what Jesus commanded. He told us to be the light of the world. This light has no impact on the darkness of this world when it is cloaked by the walls of the church building. This also helps the disciple to bear fruit. Those who claim to be a disciple will either despise it and leave or embrace it and be fruitful.
In conclusion, what are the rules? Give everything. More specifically,however, call out to the one you give your life to and would follow and ask him to simply lead you. I can think of no better way of displaying the principle of submit and commit.
No comments:
Post a Comment