by Keith Needham

Created on: April 28, 2009

The command of Jesus is to forsake all and follow Him. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who loves his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:34-39). Jesus' call demands that we give Him our all, even our very lives. This is the only way that we can be certain that we shall find eternal life.

People are not really willing to follow Jesus. Peter tells us that following Jesus demands the acceptance of suffering. "What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps" (1 Peter 2:20-21). Following Jesus means suffering. This is the true definition of grace. In the Greek, the phrase "this is commendable" can be literally translated "this is grace!" The word charis is used here: it is a gift of grace to be able to suffer as Christ did for us. And it is to this that we are called, that just as Christ suffered for us, even so, we are to walk in His steps.

Following Jesus, then, is a very difficult thing. It will demand us our lives. It will cost us. We will have to suffer. We will have to make severe sacrifices along the way. We are called to life a supernatural kind of life, a life which models that of Jesus Christ's. Paul argues that we are being conformed into the image of Christ, that the glory of Christ will be made manifest in and through us as His treasure, that of the Holy Spirit, is manifest and shed abroad in our lives. Thus, we live by His power, not our own, so that God gets the glory and God gets the honor, as it becomes convincingly clear that the power by which we live comes from God and not from ourselves.

Thus, Paul can write, "We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed - always carrying about in the body the

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