The Costly Faith #Jesus Calls Us To Follow! #JesusFollowers

 

"Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:27-31)

What does Jesus mean when he says, "Counting the costs?"

Too many people are willing to believe in a God that requires nothing – no work, to time, no money, no effort, and no works of love; a religion that’s made easy, that requires less effort than is required to heat a meal in a microwave.

They're more than ready to go to Heaven, as long as God carries them there without any requirement that they move their feet a single step.

But the inconvenient problem for those who believe this, and wish to continue to call themselves "Christian" or followers of Christ Jesus, is that this is not the religion that Jesus preached. It's not the path he calls us to walk. It's not the life he wishes us to lead on the Earth. And, according to Jesus, it doesn't even lead to eternal salvation with God, our Father!

If people really put faith in God at the center of their lives, and believed that Jesus himself lays out this religion in his words, then they would find no work for God too hard, no self-denial too severe, and no offering of service in the name of God’s chosen Son, Jesus to be enough.

Jesus spoke about costly, righteous obedience that would cause people to hate us, and a Godly kingdom here on earth that requires us to act righteously, loving even our enemies. God would then reward us with Heaven based only on our deeds.

That’s a salvation that is not easy, lazy or cheaply obtained with our vain words and lengthy prayers (Matt. 6:7; 7:21.)

That which we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. A gift freely given, a gift unwrapped and unused, is a worthless gift, regardless of the cost. Teachings by a supposed master, if unused and unapplied to our own lives, are exactly the same - useless.

Jesus never said that salvation would come without cost. He never said it would require no effort, or that it cannot or must not be "earned." In fact, he said just the opposite. Repeatedly.

His parables, including this one about the costs involved in building a tower, all point to a costly faith – a faith that requires us to give all we have to serving God by loving and serving both Him and our fellow human beings.

If faith costs nothing, and salvation can be achieved without effort, what "costs" must we count?

If effort and self-sacrifice is not required of us by God, then of what "costs" does Jesus speak regarding the tower in this parable?

If the wide and easy path is the path condemned by Jesus, why do so many seek it?

Those who don't plan, or don't count the costs, or don’t believe there ARE costs in achieving eternal salvation deserve to be mocked, just as those who would build a tower without considering the costs would deserve to be mocked, says Jesus.

And those who don’t consider ALL they have to be on the line when following Jesus should reconsider calling themselves by his name. We must be willing to share all, give all, and do all in order to follow the Paths of Righteousness and, ultimately, eternal Salvation Jesus calls us to follow.

"Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more." (Luke 12:48.) Does this sound like the words of someone advocating and approving an easy, lazy faith, to be rewarded by God with a cheaply obtained eternal life?

God said at Jesus' baptism, when He adopted Jesus as his anointed Son and appointed him as our Example and Savior, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." (Matt. 17:15.) We should, then, listen to and believe Jesus’s words, both here and elsewhere, when he says we must obey God's commands and follow his own example, doing all things he has done in obedience to our Creator.

God chose this perfectly obedient human being to be our example in all things. We therefore must make every effort to humbly and honorably seek to follow Jesus in obedience to his life's pattern, which pleased God so much.

What #JesusFollowers Believe

Many Christians throughout the ages have spoken aloud and put down in writing what they believe. And it is good to know what one believes, if you believe it strongly and actually care about what you believe. And it makes sense to let others know what you believe, as well.

But many Christians today can no longer believe what was believed in darker ages, in creeds written by men influenced by their previous pagan philosophies and by men and teachings other than those of Jesus. Requiring millions of faithful people to believe these words has led millions of them to abandon God and turn their backs on Jesus. That's a tragedy!

The emerging #JesusFollowers organization has been seeking for a while now to lay out an alternative path, one that follows the teachings of Jesus alone, influenced only by the moral teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures, which had been the prime influence on his teachings.

So, let’s take a moment to lay out some principles on which a new Church can be founded, and one in which Jesus is put ahead of all others.

Following Jesus, we love God and Serve Others, Working Righteousness.

We follow Jesus Alone – The words and teachings of Jesus, not any other teacher, savior, preacher, or theologian, are at the core of our beliefs.

Jesus is God's Chosen, Adopted, and Anointed Spokesman – God set Jesus apart from other men, Anointing and Adopting him as a special spokesman at his baptism.

Jesus teaches us to repent from sin, and follow God – Repentance (turning away) from actions that separate us from God was the core of Jesus' teachings and ministry.

Jesus is our perfect moral example in life and death – The life, teachings and death of Jesus inspire us to follow Jesus' example.

Jesus teaches us to selflessly love God and others completely – Love of God and love of Others is the core of Jesus' teaching on Love, and summarized the teachings of the Jewish prophets and Law.

Jesus challenges us to do Works of Righteousness – We are called upon by Jesus to do Righteous deeds, by which we will be judged by God, and which bring about God's Kingdom on earth. The Gospel challenges us to do better, be more than what we were, to seek Righteousness through Good Works of service.

And to seek God's forgiveness when we stumble – We will not immediately become perfect when we start (and continue) to follow Jesus' example and teachings. But when we forgive others who sin against us, we are forgiven by God for falling short of His goals.

God gave us Reason and the ability to obey Him – Reason is a God-given gift we use to discern His will, and we are fully able to follow Jesus' challenge to live our lives for God. We have no excuses with this moral ability.

God, Our Father, is One God – God (the God of Israel and of Jesus) is One God, not many – eternal and completely indivisible. God’s spirit comforts us but is not a separate Being to be worshiped.

God speaks through Jesus and the wisdom of Hebrew Scriptures – The Hebrew Bible and the words of Jesus, interpreted through Reason, faith and discernment, are our guide and comfort, and God speaks to us through these writings.

God gives us spiritual gifts: wisdom, love and moral strength – When we speak to God, God encourages us to obey Him and the one whom He sent, Jesus. God does not promise material wealth or perfect health, but gives freely His wisdom, love and moral and spiritual strength.

To build God's Kingdom here on Earth, as in Heaven – We are called to build up God's Kingdom here on earth, as it is in Heaven.

We yearn to live with God forever – When we persevere in our Faith, doing what we are called to do by God and His Servant, Jesus, and humbly rely on God's forgiveness when we falter, we may live with God eternally, but this is God’s decision to judge us, not for us to judge ourselves, nor that others should judge us.

The Pure, Simple Faith #Jesus Taught! #JesusFollowers

       

To promote real morality and true piety, we can conceive nothing so well fitted as the simplicity of Jesus - the plain, unequivocal, uninvolved requirement of love to God, tested by love to men and active usefulness in life. 

How utterly simple and plain, how free from all subtlety and dogmatic obscurity, is the teaching of Jesus.

His Sermon on the Mount is indisputable, practical, simple, having no abstruse, remote, or novel concepts. It proclaims no ideas that amaze or confuse, nor does it call for careful consideration on account of its novelty. It is a solemn, searching declaration of the universal religion of humanity. 

In it, he proclaims that God is holy, wise, good; blessed are you if you are pure, meek, hungering for righteousness, and living from the heart pure, useful, holy lives. This is all the doctrine there is in it ; not a word about the nature of the Godhead, the fall of man, the need of the atonement, the deity of Christ, the necessity of baptism and the saving sacrament of the  communion.  

Jesus was no scholar. He spoke the language and the truth and the religion of a simple, deep-thinking representative of universal humanity - true always, everywhere, and for all. There is nothing to add, nothing to take away, nothing to excuse or to explain away in his clear teachings. 

His teachings do not need any changes for the times, or the nation, or the circumstances, to account for them. It is because they give voice to what humanity knows and feels to be deepest and holiest, that they hold the allegiance of the Twenty-first, just as they will for those living of the Thirty-first Century. 

We cannot conceive of anything pertaining to our religious wants or our religious faith that do not already exist in the precepts, spirit, and example of Jesus.

We can very easily make the clear, simple, moral fact precisely what we choose to have it by enough twisted reasoning. And as we consider our consciences, so we are apt to consider our religion. God has pronounced it simple, plain, unmistakable. Jesus has taught and illustrated it in ways a child can understand. But it is so plain that it becomes severe; so simple that it looks cold and hard, like a marble statue.

We often hear the simplicity of Jesus as it reveals itself in the Sermon on the Mount compared disparagingly with the complicated faith of the Nicene Creed. But what can we call “the Christian religion” except that which really adds nothing to the old Jewish and the older natural religion of love to God and love to man, except the example and spirit of Jesus! 

What becomes of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement, and the Sacraments, and the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, and all the rest of the dogmatic paraphernalia of religion? They become invisible, like candles in the presence of the sun. 

It is the keeping of these great commandments that discloses their richness and fullness. They are simple, few, and concise. But live by them, and you will find that all the bodies of divinity in the world could not contain their lessons, or describe the glorious richness of their contents.

Do not allow yourselves to fall under the dominion of these high-sounding subtleties, these dark dogmas, these involved metaphysical puzzles, which pass for religion and Christianity. They will unsettle your common sense, and fog up your conscience, and finally make you think religion not the plainest thing in the world - a highway, in which the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err, —but an enigma and a riddle, a sphinx which you must helplessly bow before and adore, though she will answer no question you put to her.

It is not the unknown we can profit by, but the known. It is not the obscure, but the plain, that should have our attention. It takes no learning, no scholarship, no formal logic, no fine-spun reasoning, to know God so far as we need to know Him, as a moral governor and Father of our spirits; to know Jesus as a holy, gentle, and wise master and guide of character; to know our duty well enough to live chastely, truthfully, honestly, with mercy and sympathy.

(Adapted from a sermon by Dr. Henry W. Bellows)

Perfection: #Jesus' Most Misunderstood Teaching #JesusFollowers

 

"You must be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt.  5:48) says Jesus. His life demonstrates the self-denial and sacrifice that leads to this moral perfection, and he calls us to follow his example.

And the Perfection of our Character is what he meant here. Jesus doesn't require us to be the fastest runner, the snappiest dresser, or be the most perfect orators in the world, with the best bodies. Perfection doesn't mean we all should seek to look alike, or that we must be able to do every mundane task perfectly, without mistakes. Nor is it something that happens immediatly.

These misunderstandings about what Perfection means is why some claim that we cannot "be perfect" in all things. And if these physical examples were the perfection Jesus demanded, all reasonable people could easily reject such a thing as impossible.

But how DO we achieve it?

Jesus simply asks us to daily seek Godly perfection in all we think, say, and do. Through service and self-sacrifice, we are perfected. This is the cross, the burden, Jesus bids us to take up in our daily journey.

Those who too quickly condemn the idea of obtaining moral perfection are therefore in conflict with Jesus' teachings, and deny that he spoke the truth during his ministry about our ability to follow him.

Jesus offers to us his lessons, his experiences, and his life as a perfect example of one who lived in perfect harmony with God, whom Jesus said was his and our Father. Jesus calls us to follow his example, doing exactly as he did, and to be perfect and holy, just as God is perfect and holy.

This Jesus, who said he was perfectly in accord with the Father, always doing what pleased Him (John 8:29) said that we could do all things that he did, and that if we loved him, we would do all that he taught us (John 14:21; 15:10) and would teach others to do the same. (Matt. 28:20)

The moral perfection of our character is the goal we are called to seek - growing into the people God wishes us to become. By taking up Jesus' challenge to seek perfection, we become part of God's Spiritual Kingdom Jesus established with his ministry of Good Works.

Jesus calls us to forgive, just as God forgives, and be merciful, just as God is merciful. Seeking to be Godly people is never labeled as "impossible" for us by Jesus. On the contrary, as a fully human man, just as we are, he demonstrated that God's commands are neither unreasonable, nor impossible.

Jesus calls us to fail more perfectly each time we try. Which, if we're humble about it, isn't "failure" anymore. We are called by Jesus to "Fail upward" on this journey towards this Godly perfection he calls us to.

Jesus calls us to serve one another, to love one another, and to fill our neighbors’ physical and spiritual needs – feeding, clothing, comforting one another –  just as we would want ourselves to be cared for. This the core of his teaching, and the core of God’s Kingdom.

By seeking to live according to the Will of God, as shown in the life, teachings and death of God's chosen spokesman, Jesus, we grow into the likeness of God, growing more perfect each day.

Jesus' challenging calls to be merciful and live lives of Moral Perfection teach us that we must avoid a lazy, easy religion, and instead seek to be better, more holy, joyful, and Spiritually Complete! (Luke 6:36, Matt. 5:48, John 15:11.)

So, let’s keep striving towards the Perfection Jesus modeled for us to live; a Godly ideal worth striving for!

#Jesus: Fully and Completely Human, Like Us #JesusFollowers

What happens if Jesus was actually "just" a human being? What if Jesus was conceived and born exactly as we were, and was fully and completely human, just like us? The implications are startling for how we view our faith in God, and in a very good way.

Those who walked with him during his ministry knew very well that Jesus got hungry, got angry, got tired, slept, wept, bled, and prayed to God, just like they did. They knew him as a boy, they saw him gain knowledge, and grow from a baby into a man. In fact, this is the picture that manages to come through even in the Gospels as they have come down to us.

So, if this was the view of the earliest followers of Jesus, what happens when we, too, view Jesus as our elder brother - a fellow human being, fully and completely human, like us?

Something wonderful happens! With centuries of human inventions swept away, Jesus' teachings become fresh, alive and challenging, just as when he presented them the first time to astonished and joyful crowds.

With a completely human Jesus, the Gospel is a glorious set of challenges to accomplish. Jesus no longer preaches DOWN to us, knowing we cannot obey his lofty teachings that only a God-man can follow.

We must obey God’s moral Laws, and seek to follow Jesus in ALL of his teachings – because Jesus was able to follow God in all things, and said we could do all that he had done.

If we don't believe this is true, or think it's impossible, then we need to stop following him, because we are liars, not Jesus Followers. (1 John 2:4-6)

The Apostles said that God chose this fully and completely human Jesus (Acts 2:22) from among us human beings to be our example. And when Jesus said we may follow him, we know that we are able. As they say, "We can take that to the bank." 

As a "mere" human being, Jesus' teachings become something amazing. His full and complete humanity becomes our FULL pattern of life, because he followed all he tells us that God requires of us, and calls on us to do exactly the same. If we cannot do this, then Jesus was a liar when he says he did all God asked of him.

But he was just not lying, of course. His life and teachings show that he was honest about his relationship with God, and that this is the relationship we are ALSO meant to have with our Creator.

In short, the goals Jesus set for us only make sense if they are achievable BY us. And they are achievable only if he was fully and completely human, as we are.

When Jesus is viewed as fully and completely human, we accept as truth that God chose him from among humanity to be our example. And when he said we may follow him, we know that we are able.

God knows our spirit before we are born. He has always been fully aware of what we are capable, and in what ways we are weak. He didn't need to pretend to be human to do this. He is all-knowing, and all-seeing, and chose this perfectly obedient human being to be our example.

Jesus, who, as a man, was faithful to God in all things, assures us that we can do all that he did. (John 13:15; 14:12) Because Jesus followed God not with his lips alone but with his acts and with his heart, we need never fear acting as he did, letting our humble Works define our Faith.

When Jesus says "Take up your cross daily and follow me," he's calling us on a journey of joyful suffering and service, just as he embarked upon. 

But if we do not seek to follow his words, we are not really following Jesus. If we make excuses for not obeying his call to us, we are not worthy of his name. This fully and completely human Jesus is meant to be followed, not just admired.

“If you love me, keep my commands,” he says (John 14:15) But If we claim to know and love him, but reject his teachings, we are liars, unfit for his name. (1 John 2:4)

The fully human Jesus doesn't set impossible goals for the rest of us. If a human being just like us calls us to be perfect, "just as your Father in Heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48) and he, himself achieved it, then that is a challenge worthy of human beings.

We lose our excuses for sinning with a fully, completely human Jesus. We can no longer say we are "only human," hiding behind our alleged inherited moral sinfulness, if Jesus, too, was born as we were, and yet found favor with God. We can no longer hide behind our alleged human frailty, we cannot blame others or our supposed genetic inability, and we can't say that sinning is our "nature," if Jesus shared that nature with us, fully and completely.