8th Letter to my brothers and sisters

My Dear brothers and Sisters,

It has been too long since I wrote you last. Through a
series of unfortunate events, I have been delayed in my writing to you. The last
month I have burned with the desire to write to you but have been held back by
the Lord. I have been waiting to see what I was supposed to write to you about,
as I don’t want to fill you with useless knowledge. You would think that with
as long as you have been seeing people go into discipling relationships that
all of you would have gone through by now. That is still not the case. I don’t say
this in a way to tell you to hurry and sign up. As many of you know, this is
not a program or a series of class’ that you can check off as you go about your
way. So I have a few things to go over for those of you that have yet to
decided if you want to go on the journey of becoming a disciple maker and for
those of you who are trying to figure out who you would like to disciple. While
reading a book by J. Oswald Sanders I was reminded of the three types of people
that may say yes to being discipled. We learn about three types straight from
Christ himself. In Luke 9: 57-62 we see Jesus walking down the road. He is
talking with those walking with him and one man declares to Jesus that he will
follow him wherever he will go. This man is “The Impulsive” and has not counted
the cost of following Christ. Jesus reminds him that the son of man has no
where to lay his head. Jesus gives him a quick check to reality. We can see
many people get wrapped up in the charisma of following someone. This discipling
business is not to be romanced. You have the real question of would you give up
everything to follow Christ? Never say yes just to please or impress someone
else. The next type of person that we see tell Jesus that he will follow him is
“The Reluctant”. This man tells Jesus that he should first let him go bury his
father. This is the one who wants to settle things first. He wants to
essentially finish doing all he wants to do before he will follow the Lord. He
wants to follow the Lord when it is more convenient for him. I can tell you,
there will never be a convenient time to follow. The next one that tells Jesus
he will follow him is “The Halfhearted”. This is the man that tells Jesus he
should let him go back and say bye to his family. When we look at the surface
of this request, it seems like the man just wants to kiss his wife and kids’
goodbye. What could be wrong with that? Its sweet right? Well, nothing in the
word is surface deep. This man is half concerned with following the Lord and
half concerned with what he has left behind. I am reminded of Lot’s wife when I
think of this man. The Lord tells us that “no one who puts his hand to plow and
looks back is fit for service in the kingdom”. When you consider following Christ…

1.     Have you counted the cost?

2.     Are you waiting for a convenient time?

3.   Is your heart torn between your old life and the possibility of a new life?

If you are looking for someone who modeled how deciding
following Christ could look, I would suggest you reading through the story of
how Elisha decided to follow Elijah. And listen to the popular song Burn the
Ships. It is a nod to Cortez, who burnt his own ships when he arrived to
the new world with hundreds of men. He made the visual statement that there is
no turning back. If Discipling has taught me anything, you will die a thousand
deaths. However, the Lord will grow you with each one. But first you have to
make a decision on whether this is for you.

Grace & Peace