Men and Brothers,
I wanted to share an excerpt from a book "Costly Grace" by Jon Walker. I pray you are encouraged and challenged.
"And His commands are not burdensome...." --1John 5:3
---As we follow Jesus down the hard path through the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven, we find He consistently moves us toward a choice--and then He demands we make a choice.Will you follow Him into the kingdom of heaven, or will you remain a citizen of this world?
You can remain in the kingdom of this world, but then you are not His disciple. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "It is the paradox of choice. When we live as a citizen of this world we seek easy choices that lead to an easy life. However, when Jesus brings us to a choice, the choice its self is easy, it is our decision that is hard because to follow Jesus means to abandon the life of apparent convenience."
Bonhoeffer says the commands of Jesus free us from the chains of our own religious traditions. By submitting to Jesus wholeheartedly, we are free to be who we were created to be as we enjoy fellowship with Jesus.
Jesus is not arbitrary or naive in His rule. He knows the realities of this life, but He also knows the realities of eternity. His eye is on the endgame. He knows there will be a judgement for those outside His grace, and so He approaches the world with a different point of view. Even on the cross, His prayer was for forgiveness and not for vengeance, and that is a perspective we must learn as we move from thinking like fallen beings to thinking like citizens in the kingdom of heaven.
We may not understand all Jesus does, and that scares us, but that is also where faith emerges. It is at this critical junction between fear and faith that we can see the cost of discipleship clearly--and so Jesus pushes us constantly to this place of choice, where we follow in faith or pull back in fear.
Think about your choices. What do they say about your relationship with Jesus?---
I pray these thoughts blessed you and gave you some real meat to chew on. There is no sense in us wasting our time pretending to love God. He will not be mocked. Chose to walk in God's ways today and every day. Rise up O' man of God! I love you and I'm praying for you.
To God be the Glory!
papa sam
