Life In The End

The Cost of Discipleship

(Story from Luke 5:27-28; 9:23-25, 57-62 ESV)

It was a day like any other day, Levi awoke early, made breakfast and prepared for his day as usual. He knew he would encounter angry and bitter people this day, like most days. Certainly there would be snide remarks and empty threats...at least he hoped the threats would be empty. Some days he felt like he deserved the hate he received, for after all he was a tax collector. Yet it was a lucrative position and his family was well taken care of. Who needs friends anyway?

Shortly after opening up shop and new visitor came to see Levi. This was a different encounter then any he had ever experienced. He had met men and women from all around the known world in his position, but this Jewish man was different. The room changed as He entered and for the first time in years, Levi felt real peace. He couldn’t explain it, but it was there.

“Follow me!” is all this man said. No explanation, no further directions, just “follow me.”  Yet Levi knew in that moment, down to his inner being, that this man didn’t mean simply to accompany him down the street. This was a much deeper journey, a call that would effect his entire being. It was a call to forget his life as he knew it. To forget the steady paycheck, to forget the prestige and power and to embrace the unknown. Levi’s analytical mind was racing, but his heart had already answered.

He got up, left everything and followed Him. Nothing has been the same since.

Even as Jesus changed Levi’s life, Jesus continued to change lives of men and women throughout His earthly ministry with a simple call, “Come and Follow Me.” This was a phrase He used to call His disciples, followers who would learn to imitate Him and take up His cause. Soon Jesus gathered 12 followers who would be His closest companions. Later crowds started following, but their commitment wasn’t the same.

Jesus described what it meant to truly follow Him with these words, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”

It became clear that there is a cost to discipleship. Jesus wasn’t looking for a flaky followers, but He desired resolve and determination to love what He loved. So He challenged others to follow Him, as He did with Levi, to willingly give up all they knew and follow Him.

One journey Jesus took with His twelve disciples was from Samaria to Jerusalem. As they were walking one young man ran up and said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Not much farther down the very same road, another man approached. Jesus look at him and said, “Follow Me!” The man seemed interested but he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

A third time a different person approached Jesus, and with eagerness he said,  “I will follow you, Lord…” but then he added,  “…let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

With each of these three encounters, the disciples learned more and more that following Christ was costly, but worth it.

Creation Restored

(Story from John 14:1-7 ESV; Luke 17:24 ESV; Revelation 21 and 22 The Message)

Many years had passed since the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven. The Apostle John, now an old man, sat reflecting on the promises Jesus had made to them that day. “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will return for you and take you to be where I am. In my Father’s house are many rooms... I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me!”

Yet Jesus also promised that the day He returns would be a spectacular day. “For as the lighting flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day!” He is coming to put an end to the sin and corruption of this world.

Much has happened since Jesus ascended and the Church, all the Followers of Jesus, had been born. Most of John’s close friends and fellow apostles had already given their lives for the cause of Christ. John himself was banished to the Island of Patmos because of his faith in Jesus. He longed for the times he spent with Jesus and the other disciples many years earlier. He spent much time reading through the Scriptures and teaching whomever he could about the glorious appearing of Jesus.

The promise of Jesus return brought much hope, as He promised to destroy all evil, sin and rebellion. In that day there will be no more sickness, cancer, pain or death. There will be no more slavery or abuse. And every Christian, dead or alive, will be resurrected to new life, in a new body on a new earth! Most importantly, the will get to live with Jesus forever!

One day, John was walking around the island of Patmos talking to Jesus as if He were right there with him. When all of a sudden, John, whether in a dream or vision he did not know,  was actually transported somewhere else and Jesus showed John what was to come!

“I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea. I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.”

Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center.

I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me.”

“But for the rest—the faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it’s Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!”

As John returned to himself back on the island, he was overwhelmed with what he saw. Yet the voice of Jesus was ringing in his ears to write this Story down and pass it on to others. Jesus left him with one final promise for His followers to be expectant and ready for, “Surely I am coming soon!”

(Today’s post is inspired from: The Storyformed Way)