Accepting the Challenge
It is not that we have not heard that intriguing call , “Follow Me.” It is not even that we do not believe in and admire the One who calls. Our struggle is that it is just plain difficult to be a follower. In a world consumed by leadership, independence, and self-led living, it is so tough to find volunteers who will even admit that they want to be followers. We get and give the impression that followers are limp, vulnerable, weak, controlled by others, and lacking in initiative.
Growing up hasn’t changed our perception of the difference between leading and following – only now it’s not a game, and the stakes are high. All of life and its outcomes rise and fall on whether or not we will choose to be the leader of our own destiny or a follower of someone wiser and better fit to lead. Unfortunately, when it comes to the life choices that matter most, we resist yielding control. We don’t want to give the impression that we are unable to figure out life for ourselves. Like men who refuse to stop and ask directions when they are lost, we fear that others will think we aren’t wise and strong.
Or perhaps it’s just our “want-tos” that lead us astray.
In the face of our resistance to being vulnerable, Christ calls us to come after Him. He calls us to count ourselves singularly, wholly, and without compromise fully devoted followers of Him – not as a part-time expression of, or add-on to, our Christianity, but as the all-consuming center point of our existence. Yet this tension between the call of Christ and our resistance to following puts the experience and expression of authentic Christianity in jeopardy.
Christianity is Christ
The struggles that put followership in jeopardy are not uncommon. Yet at the core of it all, it is not a struggle with rules and regulations. The issue is something far more significant, more compelling. Following Christ is a relationship that drives and defines all we are and do. In fact, that’s what I (author) love about followership. It’s not a project. It’s a Person. It’s a relationship to a Person who perfectly loves and cares for us and who is wise beyond comparison – a Person who has done so much for His followers that they look for ways to please and obey Him.
Followership would be drudgery and dull if it were nothing but an obligation to fulfill or a list of rules to keep. We don’t find joy and fulfillment in a good marriage because of the institution of marriage, the laws that govern it, or the tax breaks for filing jointly.
If Christianity is dull and boring, if it is a burden and not a blessing, then most likely we are involved in a project, not a Person – a system, not a Saviour, rules rather than relationship.
Followership is not a religious thing, a list of rules, a host of rituals, a philosophy of life, or the best choice among other possible lifestyle. Authentic followers do not live for liturgy or liberation. Following is not a celebration. It is not contemporary or traditional. It is not jubilant dance or compelling drama. It is not preaching. It is not praising. It is not obeying or conforming.
It is Christ, and Christ alone.
All the rest is because of Christ and for Christ.
We are prone to embrace the forms and functions as though they were the essence. But they are only the expression; He is the essence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,
Discipleship means adherence to Christ….An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous…. Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.~to be continued~
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