Sunday 23 March 2014

Discipleship Rebooted - Luke 8:22 - 56 Part 1

Ever wondered how Jesus was able to sleep through the storm? The panicking disciples awoke him, and then he commanded the wind and waves to be silent. Not only did Jesus have power over creation, he also had peace, resting safe in the love of the Father.

 All of us find over time our lives get cranky. Just like our electronic gadgets that lock up, its as if every now and again we need a reboot - a fresh start. Yet for a Christian it should surely be more than a simple restore back to factory settings? Surely living as a Christian should be a process whereby God restores us forward to His eternal purposes - the process of discipleship.

Is our disciple (in the West) lacking? Do we lack that same peace Jesus had, the ability to weather storms. Do we get distracted and fall away too easily? The first disciples left their boats (Luke 5:11) and responded to Jesus' invitation for them. How much do we still cling to stuff rather than following?

Bottom line is have we made discipleship 'easy yet complicated'? Easy in the sense that anyone can turn up, enjoy our worship, benefit from what the church can offer ... yet complicated in that we actually seem to require all kinds of extra layers of attainment and things people must do to really be counted.

Compare this to the simple invitation of Jesus: 'Come follow me ...'. Yet of course simple though such following may sound, the path Jesus was to lead was incredibly hard; it would mean laying things down, being rejected, suffering great cost. Surely with Jesus discipleship was in fact 'simple yet hard'.

So have we made discipleship 'easy yet complicated' instead of 'simple yet hard'?

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