Discipleship

"Did you ever stop to ask what a yoke is really for? Is it to be a burden to the animal which wears it? It
is just the opposite. It is to make its burden light. Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke
the plough would be intolerable. Worked by means of a yoke it is light. A yoke is not an instrument of
torture; it is an instrument of mercy. It is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; it is a gentle
device to make hard labor light. It is not meant to give pain, but to save pain. And yet men speak of the
yoke of Christ as if it were a slavery and look upon those who wear it as objects of compassion." --

Henry Drummond

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DISCIPLESHIP

When we eat out, I've noticed we tend to ask for substitutions. We ask for a salad instead of fries or fruit instead of hash browns. We don't go back to restaurants that don't allow substitutions or charge us extra for them. We want it want it the way we want it and do not want to be limited by the menu.

Do people really expect to have it "their way" with faith too? Goldie Hahn describes herself as a "Jewish Buddhist."

--Biography, May 2001, p. 46

Can a person be Jewish and Buddhist at the same time? I'm not sure that a Jewish Rabbi or a Buddhist Priest would be willing to form a hybrid religion by compromising their beliefs to accommodate the others.

People are deeply spiritual today. But their spirituality does not necessarily resemble Biblical spirituality and they aren't automatically monogamous to any one religion. Like passing through a cafeteria line, people pick and chose elements out of different religions they will follow. It isn't "no faith" or a "different faith," it is "designer faith."

Faith in Christ cannot be combined with faith in anything else. To follow Christ, people have to leave everything else behind. He demands total loyalty and obedience.

Matthew 16:24 NIV "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

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Quote

  "Some Christians end up as backsliders because they are

conquered by a sinful habit that is inconsistent with their

Christian discipleship.  Instead of giving up the habit, they

give up their church and faith."

     - W. Werning

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"Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is
always Christianity without Christ."

     -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost of Discipleship"
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A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.

Martin Luther

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Discipleship without apostleship leads to stagnation. Apostleship
without discipleship leads to burnout. A life-giving faith requires both: the inflow from disciplined learning and the
outflow of being sent into the world with a message.