Is Discipleship an Option?

There must be repentance of sins. We cannot expect a person to be saved by simply praying a 50 second prayer with them. We cannot repent for them and repentance cannot happen by means of repetition. Do you see what has happened? We don’t even give the Holy Spirit time to create genuine contrition and then we don’t even let the person repent and believe in Jesus as Lord for themselves. So we take both the place of the Holy Spirit and the place of the lost.

I say this loud and clear, “I do not believe that saving faith in Jesus is mere intellectual assent or agreement with a Conclusion.” It is not less then that but certainly much more. We do not work our way intellectually into God but we are Saved by God. It is not a spiritual education into God but Conversion. Saving faith in Jesus Christ is stirred up within us ONLY by the Spirit of God.

There are teachers, doctrines, and churches that would teach that in order to be saved all one has to do is “believe.” Let me explain. When people say that saving faith/belief in Jesus is of the exact same nature as faith/belief in gravity they are making a categorical mistake.

When we look at the psalms it is more than obvious that the psalmist had genuine belief and faith in God. Different words are used though—Trust/Refuge.

“The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord, their refuge in a time of distress. The Lord helps and delivers them; He will deliver them from the wicked and will save them because they take refuge (trust) in Him.” Psalm 37:40

“Our Fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them. They cried to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disgraced.” Psalm 22:4-5

Believing in Jesus cannot be whatever we want it to be. I believe thousands of different things about the world but only a few of those beliefs demand commitment and trust. To separate belief and faith from trust, refuge, and commitment is to do a disservice to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Moreover, if saving faith was of the same nature as faith that the sun is hot then the Holy Spirit is not needed.

Theologians that believe this kind of stuff tell me that where the Holy Spirit comes into play is in the opening of our eyes to see that He is the only way to be saved. They are only half right. He opens our eyes to see and then gives us courage to believe or Trust in Jesus. He doesn’t only open our eyes, but He awakens a faith not of this world. A faith that only comes from God and goes to God.

What I feel has happened is that we have churches filled with people who only believe in Jesus from a distance but disbelieve in him from up close. They trust him for the “then and there” but not for the “here and now.” Jesus is not divided. One cannot come to him for salvation now and then only if they feel like it decide to come to Him for discipleship later. There are not two Jesus: Jesus the Lord & Jesus our Salvation. Jesus is our salvation precisely because He is Lord. We come to the Lord Jesus and it is He alone that Saves us.
If faith in Jesus is a trusting in Jesus then commitment and devotion to Jesus come into play. Now we know that we cannot serve to masters, so we either follow Jesus or we follow the world (which as James tells us is enmity with God). To trust Jesus for real means to no longer trust in the spirit of this world. It means to turn away from self, sin, the world, and satan and turn to Jesus. To trust in Jesus is at the same time to repent of our sins.

Let us be done with a painless, comfortable, and cross-less Christianity and become followers of Jesus for real.

“There is no part time service, leave everything and follow me.” Leonard Ravenhill.