A great pondering of my...

heart recently is that of discipleship. On this post I wrote about Bonhoeffer's appeal to Christians to embrace and live costly grace as purchased by the shed blood of Christ.

In studying Matthew 8, Jesus demonstrates a very specific authority over His disciples. Part of Matthew's purpose in his writing is to show Jesus as God's Anointed One, the Messiah King, who has specific, unique, and sovereign authority over every aspect of His disciple's lives. I realize this type of writing makes many of us nervous, myself included, because as a commenter aptly noted, "The costly grace that requires everything from us may leave us nearly unrecognizable in the end." She's right on.

So what do you do with such a challenge to self? In the pondering of these things, I was reminded of this verse in Matthew 10:24-25a, "A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master." The context of the verse is in Jesus' instructions to His disciples as He sends them out to preach the message of His kingdom. He is warning that as His disciples they will come under persecution, hardship and trial because of their identification with Him.

To consider that obeying the Father's will cost Jesus His life, a conclusion arises that it is either A) arrogant or B) ignorant to think that discipleship, identification with Christ will cost us nothing.

A second commenter asked a harder question in my post, "What to do?"

The answer lies in Jesus' words of Matthew 10:39, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Let the clarion call of my very soul issue the cry that whatever He asks, I will give. Whatever He requires, I will surrender. Whatever He commands, I will obey. I believe, Lord, help me in my unbelief. There can be no other option for a true disciple of Christ.