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Incoming Text Message:
“Hey Jesus said deny me on earth and I will deny u in heaven. If ur not ashamed of him send to 10 ppl even me. This may b ur test!”
Gr84wder: hey, what’s up
Grl4God: nm, u?
Gr84wder: nm, did u get my text?
Grl4God: yeah, im gonna send it later
Gr84wder: y l8r?
Grl4God: cuz I gotta paper to write, I will tho
Gr84wder: wut if ur bein tested? 4 real, I don’t want Jesus to be ashamed of me
Grl4God: ur right, Ill send it
Think I’m exaggerating? It isn’t too far from what I am now getting on my cell phone at least on a weekly basis. The email forwards are not enough, apparently, because now Jesus is standing over my shoulder in anticipation, waiting to see if I have the faith to hit the “forward” button on my discipleship.
If only discipleship were that easy. And, if only taking passages out of the Bible were that easy.
Do you think God knew what we would do with those passages? Do you think God knew that we would one day be texting each other threats and “tests” to prove our faith, as if we are not already called to make Jesus the story of our lives?
I would really like to believe that forwarding a text message or writing “I love Jesus!!!!” in the “religion” section on my Facebook profile were enough. What a nice, thoughtless, comfortable cop-out that would be. It would be far less demanding than studying the Bible, asking myself what discipleship really means, or talking with my friends about how they are really feeling tested in their relationships.
But, this is yet another challenge for us who call ourselves Christians. See, I like to think that we don’t always take Scripture and divorce it from its overall message, and I also like to think that I’m not the kind of Christian who is convinced that other people are measuring my faith against their own in one way or another. However, it seems like the more flooded my inboxes are becoming, the more I see that a quick-fix message about shame is enough to make me put my faith into action.
Or is it?
There was a time in my life where I could not conceive of going to school without wearing a Christian t-shirt or taking every chance I could get to whip out my Bible. Those are only two ways that some people choose to express a passion for God, and yet they—and text messages about Jesus standing over us in expectation—have become the way we judge discipleship.
Now, I would be stupid to think that I haven’t replaced some of these measurements with others. I can just as easily now look at my friends and judge their discipleship by the way they read the Bible, their commitment to the church or their motivations for their political opinions. I would be lying to myself, though, if I pretended like those things are what makes a disciple.
What makes a disciple? Is it our actions? Is it our good intentions?
For such a long time I was convinced that I would work my way into salvation. I would show God how much I cared by occupying the same seat in worship every Sunday, all the while pretending like I didn’t know there was something else involved.
If you are a Christian, I want to offer you a new suggestion, and it does not come in the form of a text message or email to guilt or manipulate you into a false sense of righteousness. If you are a Christian, you are a disciple through the grace of God. You are a disciple because God showed God’s love to you in a real way that gives you strength you can’t get anywhere else. You are a disciple because God has called you to live into a new reality, and that is a reality that is always much more difficult than sending a quick text between classes.
Our entire lives are involved, but it is the best calling plan we could ever ask for.
{mos_fb_discuss:11}
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