Discipleship: Part I

“As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’” (Luke 9:57-58)

There is a fearful lack of understanding concerning discipleship (meaning following after Christ); and it is troubling because Christ taught so plainly and so intensely about it (Luke 9:23-26, 14:25-35, Matt 10:32-39). In our advertisement-filled, entertainment-centered, consumer-driven culture, we like to make everything easy and fun, and sadly even the church buys into this heresy. Jesus never taught that the path to eternal life was easy or fun. If you desire eternal life, if you wish to be counted among the redeemed, then it will require you to surrender your entire life to Christ, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9:24) And if you desire the fellowship of the Godhead, it will require you to be pure in heart and to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6, 8). Easy and fun are hardly the words to describe eternal life—more like painfully difficult but deeply soul-satisfying!

Now what does discipleship look like? Thankfully, God gives us a number of examples in His Word. The first comes from Luke 9:57-58. What is absolutely foreign to our culture is the fact that Jesus put so many stumbling blocks in the way of those who wanted to follow Him. He makes it hard. He makes its difficult for them; he does not water it down or pander to their felt needs. Does that man describes us, have we said, “I will follow You wherever You go!” If so, Jesus says to us, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” In other words, “You want to follow Me? Are you sure about that? Foxes have holes to stay in and the birds have their nests—I have nowhere even to sleep and if you want to follow Me you won’t have a place to sleep either. You’re going to have to suffer and endure difficulty and forfeit many of your comforts, are you sure you want to follow Me?”

Are we ready to follow Christ under these circumstances? If this is too difficult, if you like your comforts too much, then I would suggest you follow the foxes into their holes because you won’t fit into a bird’s nest to sleep. My brothers and sisters, it is a fearful saying but I implore you to “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Luke 13:23-24)

DO NOT be deceived. Many, many, many people will seek to enter into eternal life and will not be able. Many will strive, many will try, and few will enter. Therefore rest your souls in Christ and submit to His lordship, lose your life for His sake, and perhaps you might save it. Perhaps God might show mercy and draw you to Himself by grace. Yet I fear many of you will still be counted among “the many” on that last day…