Westside Church of Christ

Jesus was the ultimate realist and never softened the realities of discipleship. His footprints have been left for us to demonstrate what it means to follow Him. We must shed the notion that it is the way that we want it to be or we fail from the start. Self-denial is not easy, but it is essential (Luke 9:23). No one can change that. It is a nonnegotiable, perpetual choice based upon our determination to live life His way.

It is a challenging road. Focusing on the Son as He walked through this world elevates our concept of what it means. His teaching rocked His listeners (Matthew 7:28-29). It will have the same effect on us if we take it seriously. He left no room for compromise. We don’t fit the Lord in around the edges of our lives. He is the centerpiece built on two principles: Love God with all of our heart and love our neighbor. We have a book filled with directions on how to do that.

Our faith intersects with His grace on a hill topped by three crosses. Without either our faith or His grace, there is no way home. He paid the price for our sins and offers a cleansing that we cannot receive any place else. We come empty handed to His kingdom, like little children who have nothing but need (Matthew 18:1-4). Humility is a hard one. Accepting our own limitations hurts our pride, but it is crucial. We cannot save ourselves.

It is a genuine test of faith to trust in the One whom we cannot see. Life happens all around us. It’s easy to love those who love us, but Jesus taught something radically different. Love our enemies. Pray for those who mistreat us. Rejoice when people mistreat or lie about us. It makes no sense to our human minds, but that is what it means to follow Him. Plans to retaliate are shredded. It is the Jesus way. We do not lead. We follow. He did it. We do, too.

Emotions sometimes take control. We “lose our temper.” We speak without thinking. We carve up offenders with words that will never be forgotten as they slash deep gashes. Jealousy and envy distort our thinking. Lust drags us into the darkness. A wide assortment of fleshly impulses warps our lives. Denying their dictatorship is hard, but a must. Yielding to them leads us away from the life that the Lord intends for us.

America has always been a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” culture. It’s a silly picture and an impossible task. Following Jesus flies in the face of such an idea. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and there is only one who can resurrect a corpse. It isn’t us, no matter how hard we tug on our shoe laces. Every one of us was helpless and hopeless, and then there was Jesus. Discipleship is hard. Lost for eternity is infinitely worse.