Follow Me (II)

On Life in Christ

"[In John 14.6, Jesus] was not saying, 'Go this way to find truth and life.' Instead, he was saying, 'I am the way and the truth and the life.' The call of Jesus was, 'Come to me. Find rest for your souls in me. Find joy in your heart from me. Find meaning in your life through me.' This extremely shocking and utterly revolutionary call is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: we are not called to simply believe certain points or observe certain practices, but ultimately to cling to the person of Christ as life itself." (54)

"For all who come to Christ and receive a new heart from him, the God of the universe looks at you and says, 'I have absolutely no record of anything ever having gone wrong in your life.'" (61)

"[When] you come to Jesus--when you unite your life with his--everything that belongs to him becomes yours... [His] righteousness replaces your unrighteousness. But there's more. When you come to Jesus, his Spirit fills your spirit. His love becomes your love. His joy becomes your joy. His mind becomes your mind. His desires become your desires. His will becomes your will. His purpose becomes your purpose. His power becomes your power. The Christian life thus becomes nothing less than the outliving of the indwelling Christ." (66)

On the Great Commission

"When I look at the church today, it looks like we have taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and sit in one location. If you ask individual Christians today what it practically means to make disciples, you will likely get jumbled thoughts, ambiguous answers, and probably even some blank stares. We seem to have exempted one another from any personal responsibility to fish for men, and I'm convinced that the majority of professing Christians would not say their purpose in this life is to make disciples of all nations. In fact, most would shrink back from this thought..." (69)

"Why are so many supposed Christians sitting on the sidelines of the church, maybe even involved in the machinery of the church, but not wholeheartedly, passionately, sacrificially, and joyfully giving their lives to making disciples of all nations?... [If] Christianity involves supernatural regeneration whereby the God of the universe reaches down his hand of mercy into the depths of our souls, forgives us of all our sin, and fills us with his Spirit, then a spectator mentality is spiritually inconceivable. For people whose hearts, minds, wills, and relationships have been radically turned upside down by the person of Christ, the purpose of Christ will reign supreme." (68-69)

On Adoption as God's Children

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! John cries. 'See it! See the delight the Father has in you and me as his children!' The rest of the New Testament beckons disciples of Jesus to see that God our Father delights in forgiving us, providing for us, leading us, protecting us, disciplining us, giving to us, calling us, and promising us his inheritance. God on high experiences pleasure in doing all of these things for us as his children." (103)

"Doesn't it take your breath away for a moment to hear God say, 'I love you'? To which we, in our sinfulness, must certainly respond. 'Why?' And then to hear him answer, 'Because you're my child.' To which we ask the obvious question, 'Why would I, a hopeless sinner, now be called your cherished child?" Only to hear him say, 'Because I wanted you, and I came to get you so that you might know me as Father.'" (104)

On Satisfaction in Christ

"We've all been created with cravings--cravings for things like air, food, water, and companionship. God told Adam in the Garden of Eden, 'You are free to eat and enjoy!' This garden paradise where Adam and Eve lived was not a place where humans had no needs or desires. Instead, it was a place where all of their needs and desires were met by the God who created them. The same is true in our lives. You and I have cravings that are designed to be satisfied by our Creator. God has hardwired us with desires for water, food, friends, meaning, and purpose, and each of these cravings is intended to drive us to God as the giver of all good gifts and the sole source of all satisfaction." (107)

On John 6:35. "To come to Jesus, or to believe in Jesus, is to look to him to satisfy your soul forever. To come to Jesus is to taste and see that he is good and to find in him the end of all your desires. To believe in Jesus is to experience an eternal pleasure that far outweighs and outlasts the temporal pleasures of the world." (109)

"[Many] professing Christians think that coming to Christ involves letting go of the things in the world that we love in order to embrace things that, if we're really honest, we loathe. We may be willing to 'make a decision for Christ' in order to save our skin for eternity, but truth be told, we really like the ways of this world and really want the things of this world. So we're caught in the middle. We think that we're supposed to try hard to follow Christ. Yet deep down inside, the pleasures  pursuits, plaudits, and possessions of this world seem far more enticing. Consequently, as we've already seen, the lives of professing Christians are oftentimes virtually indistinguishable from the lives of non-Christians. We claim faith in Christ, yet we are just as sensual, just as humanistic, and just as materialistic as the world around us." (110)

"When Jesus transforms our desires, we realize that the problems we have with sin in this world are not because we want pleasure too much; our problems are that we want pleasure too little. It is tragic when so-called Christians live just like non-Christians, running endlessly after the next temptation, the bigger house, the nicer possession, the newer pursuit, the greater notoriety, the higher success, and the more comfortable lifestyle. Such a quest for pleasure in this world reflects a lack of contentment in Christ. deep down inside, people seem to be afraid that if they let go of the stuff of this world, they will miss out on satisfaction in this world. But disciples of Jesus gladly leave behind the trinkets this world offers because they have found surpassing treasure in Christ. The passionate pursuit of true, deep, and lasting satisfaction always leads to Jesus." (112)