They gave up everything, and we can’t even give up our comfort.
In the end it makes me wonder where our priorities lie, what is the most important thing to us? Is it Jesus Christ? Or is it our comfort?
I’ve been reading through a book called ‘radical’ by David Platt. Something that really caught my attention is something I’ve heard many times before, but this time it hit me on a much deeper level... The book mentions the fact that Jesus, when calling the disciples, called them to give up EVERYTHING.
Their material possessions, their homes, their jobs, their family and friends and ultimately: their lives were not of any value if they were to truly follow Christ. Jesus said they must sell all they have and give to the poor, he said they couldn’t wait to follow him in order to say goodbye to family or bury their dead, he said they must give it all up... everything... because in the end, they must give up their lives for Him. He was asking them to abandon themselves and everything of importance to them in order to find true meaning and true purpose and true life. This calling wasn’t meant to be easy or comfortable, but it was meant to bring LIFE! The rewards we receive when we abandon ourselves are so much greater than anything we can possibly imagine. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by the calling, we feel that our lives are being threatened by what Jesus is asking of us – why? Because we are comfortable...
That’s the problem right there... we’re finding our comfort in the wrong place. Our priorities are wrong. We are supposed to be in the world but not of the world! So why is it then that our comfortable lives are made comfortable by the very things we are called to abandon. Our focus is on ourselves so often that when we hear Jesus calling us to pick up our cross, even in the smallest areas of our lives, we shut him out. The disciples gave up their families, their homes, their jobs and their money, their safety and in the end, their lives... and in our society today, we struggle to give up music, movies, addictions, materialism, bad habits...
The radio is playing or the TV is on and we know that what’s on isn’t glorifying God, in fact – it’s insulting Him. So why is it that we can’t turn it off... we can’t walk away... we can’t say no... Have we forgotten that this life is not about US? This life is not about how to satisfy our own needs and our own wants and our own desires... this world CANNOT satisfy us... so why do we keep trying to fill ourselves up with emptiness? I guess I just think it’s so important to remember that only Christ can satisfy us, only HE can give us what we need. The disciples got it, they saw Christ and realized that nothing else mattered, nothing else had any value and they would abandon EVERYTHING in order to follow Christ. They realized that in the end they were actually gaining so much more...
In our day to day lives, do we strive to choose Jesus over our comfort? Do we find our purpose and meaning in Him, or do we look to fill ourselves in other ways? Do we strive to surrender all we are and all we have in order to prove that Christ is EVERYTHING? Do we strive to live radical lives – lives that do the opposite of those people living around us in order to point them to God? Do we read the word of God and truly listen to the words of Jesus Christ, or do we read them and then water them down in order to maintain our comfortable lives. We aren’t called to be comfortable. We need to live on the edge, we need to pick up our cross, we need to be the mirror-image of Jesus Christ.
