A Sunday school class at our church is exploring the topic of "discipleship" for the next few weeks. This runs concurrent with a bigger discipleship ministry we're launching this year that I've been working with one of our associate pastors on. This past Sunday morning's class introduced the concept of being a true disciple of Christ, and explored the difference in merely being a believer, and being an actual disciple. To be sure, the differences are many, and difficult, and costly.
Which leads me to the question: why even try to be a disciple?
I mean, if being a believer is enough to get you into Heaven, why put all that extra effort into maturing and following Christ, knowing the inherent costs? One believer remarked that it was a matter of obedience -- there really were no other options. Another believer remarked that there was this holy fear that he would appear before the throne with much regret at having wasted moments of his life not impacting the world for the glory of God. I don't know if there's any one right answer. I think everyone has to answer that question for themselves.
Myself, I cling to something I wrote a while back about why I choose to follow the Lord. It is echoed by one of my fave verses in the Bible -- Phil3:7-8: "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord".
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