The good news is a gift, yet Jesus calls us to deny ourselves and take up our cross. Learn to be motivated by God's love to live as beloved disciples.
The good news is rightly presented to us as a gift. As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed, "Come, everyone without money, buy and eat" (Isaiah 55:1)! Yet as we start to follow Jesus, we are confronted with his call to discipleship: "If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34). This fundamental tension is at the heart of the gospel: salvation is a gift that costs everything.
To stop bouncing between either apathy or exhaustion, but to be motivated by God's love to live as beloved disciples who wholeheartedly love God.
In 1982, death row convict Eddie McLoughlin received the news that any prisoner would want: the state Supreme Court had overturned his conviction. He was free to go home.
But on March 17, 1983, Eddie went to the judge, pled guilty to first-degree murder and armed robbery, and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Why, after being set free, would he plead guilty? Would you plead guilty?
After a childhood filled with physical, emotional, and psychological abuse, it was astonishing that Eddie had found the strength to confess to his crimes, accept justice, and spend decades doing menial labor in prison.
It all started when an evangelist named John Nelson reached out to Eddie with the gospel. No matter how many times Eddie said he wasn't interested, John came back to visit him twice a week. (Would you visit a murderer and a death row inmate twice a week, to tell him of God's love?)
After becoming a Christian, Eddie humbly received mentoring from Prison Fellowship staff. Through their influence, he learned not only that God had saved him from his sins, but God also wanted him to take responsibility for the irreparable harm he had caused others.
Over time, Eddie became a leader of his prison church, and after his release from jail, he consistently volunteered in thirteen jails to minister to over 300 men every week.
Instead of asking God for a "get out of jail free" card, Eddie understood the significance of Jesus paying the price for our sins. In response to the freedom that God gave him, he surrendered himself to a lengthy prison sentence and a lifetime of serving others.
As Eddie wrote in a guest article for Newsweek, "After all, it wasn't a death sentence that changed my life. It was love."
Few missionary journeys were as successful as the prophet Jonah's! His assignment: a brief, three-day walk around the city of Nineveh, proclaiming a message of divine judgment to a people known for their rapacious military exploits.
But to his horror, the entire populace responded with conviction: they covered themselves with sackcloth, proclaimed a fast, and earnestly sought God's forgiveness.
Yet Jonah was irate. He complained to God that he was too gracious and compassionate. Seeing God's mercy given to his enemies was too much for him, and he asked God to take his life (Jonah 4:1-3).
Jonah wanted the benefits of God's blessings for himself and his people. But he remained totally opposed to loving others, and especially to loving his enemies!
Jonah's story reveals the reality of God's judgment: Blessing for those who repent, but rebuke for those who refuse to yield their lives.
In our day, it sounds like this: "I want forgiveness without change. I want heaven without holiness. I want God's benefits without God himself." When we only want God's blessings on whatever we want to do, we're acting like Jonah.
But as Jesus asked, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Luke 6:46).
Imagine you are responsible for interviewing people who want to join your church. As you ask God to guide your heart, you listen attentively to the next candidate.
He says, "I was raised by godly parents and grandparents, and was baptized in the church that my great-grandfather founded. For my whole life, I've served in full-time ministry, with an incredible passion to do what is right and obey God."
It sounds like an easy case, right? This person is a great Christian, and we would be glad to have them join the church!
But here is how the Apostle Paul reflected upon all of his spiritual credentials: "Because of Jesus, I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith" (Philippians 3:8-9).
Despite his zeal for God as a Pharisee and his zeal for God as an apostle, Paul did not base his identity on what he had done for God. Instead, he saw these credentials as a loss compared to "the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:7-8).
When we pride ourselves on our spiritual legacy, all that we've done for God, and our religious reputation, we drift away from the immeasurably greater gifts of God's friendship, grace, and righteousness.
It's only when we courageously look past the religious language and into the depths of our hearts that we see the true story. "I don't want to need forgiveness. I want credit for all the good I've done. I want God to recognize that I deserve his blessing."
When we forget that God's grace, received only by faith, is the foundation of our lives, we go astray.
It's hard to see which is harder for us: the selfishness of Jonah or the spiritual pride of pre-conversion Paul. But in both of their stories, as in Eddie McLoughlin's testimony, they decided to place God first. It is in the presence of God who loves us and trustworthy friends, we can begin to discern where we most need to experience God's grace.
Consider some of these questions as a starting point:
As you review your answers, what patterns do you notice? Consider discussing them with a trusted friend and see what observations they might have about your spiritual life.
Whether we presume God's blessings upon our lives or seek to earn his approval through devout service, we eventually find ourselves empty and exhausted. Self-expression hollows us out; forced moral compliance burns us out. But thank God, in his grace, he offers us a better way: new life.
Consider how Titus 2:11-14 captures this paradox:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Notice the progression: God's grace appears, bringing salvation, then God's same grace trains us for godliness. The grace that justifies is the same grace that transforms.
This isn't a mathematical equation or a theological exam.
"Grace" is the experience of receiving transformative love from our Triune God of love.
The grace of God transforms us in at least three beautiful ways.
**We're liberated from the exhaustion of earning.**
As Titus says, God's grace is what brings salvation. Not our good works, religious performance, positive reputations, or avoidance of immorality.
When God enables us to understand that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1), we experience freedom from the relentless inner drive to prove our worth. The striving stops. The pretending ends. The masks come off.
A dating relationship has a certain insecurity to it: you're trying to prove that you're worthy of the other person's attention and affection. But after twenty years of a secure, loving marriage? You experience the freedom of being yourself, but who you have become is a loving spouse.
**We gain a new identity.**
Rules can modify behavior, especially when we're afraid of the consequences for breaking them.
But a new identity makes a new lifestyle normal. No matter how strong the rule is, you can't make a wolf stop eating lambs. It can't afford to starve to death. But if the wolf becomes a lamb? It will happily eat grass, no rules needed.
God's grace makes us 'his people.' When we know ourselves as God's beloved sons and daughters, disciples of Jesus Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, then it is natural for us to love God, follow Jesus, and live holy lives.
**We want to be like Christ**
All four gospels tell stories that, in their own ways, invite us to see Jesus as the perfect human, the God-man who is worthy of not only our worship but our imitation.
They also show us a remarkably honest portrayal of how the disciples struggle to understand, much less put into practice, the ethic that Jesus requires of his followers.
But who wrote and distributed the gospels? The same eyewitnesses who shared their stories in the gospels are the ones who started the church. After the resurrection, they were compelled to tell everyone who Jesus was, what he was like, and why he was worthy of worship. Wouldn't you, if you had talked to Jesus after you saw him die?
As the prophet Ezekiel forecast, "I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God" (Ezekiel 36:27-28).
Or as the Apostle Paul put it, "Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1).
To know Jesus is to want to be like him. Our obedience is not reluctant, but joyful. It's not a performance but an authentic expression of who we are. We understand the cost of discipleship is high, but it's much less than the cost of non-discipleship. We feel overwhelmed by the grace of God for sinners like us that we can't help but become "living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1).
One of the most tested ways that we experience this transformation is through worship. Whether alone or with friends, meditate on and sing Isaac Watts' famous hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross":
When I survey the wondrous cross > on which the Prince of glory died, > my richest gain I count but loss, > and pour contempt on all my pride. > > Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast > save in the death of Christ, my God! > All the vain things that charm me most, > I sacrifice them through his blood. > > See, from his head, his hands, his feet, > sorrow and love flow mingled down. > Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, > or thorns compose so rich a crown? > > Were the whole realm of nature mine, > that were a present far too small. > Love so amazing, so divine, > demands my soul, my life, my all.
Now great crowds were traveling with him. So he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. "For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man started to build and wasn't able to finish.' "Or what king, going to war against another king, will not first sit down and decide if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple. "Now, salt is good, but if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty? It isn't fit for the soil or for the manure pile; they throw it out. Let anyone who has ears to hear listen."
Does Jesus sound like he is offering a good life to his disciples?
Have you counted the cost of discipleship?
Why doesn't Jesus offer another way of following him?
Where do you most resist surrendering to Christ? What makes it hard to follow him?
If you felt completely secure in the love and grace of God, how would your life change?
Father, open my eyes to the extravagance of your grace. Let it astonish me anew.
Jesus, thank you for both freely giving yourself for me and calling me to freely give myself to you.
Holy Spirit, transform my heart so that surrender becomes my joy, not my obligation.
Discuss how God was at work in your lives this week.
Discuss Luke 14:25-35 together. What did you learn through your personal study of this text?
Discuss how experiencing grace produces transformation in our lives.
Write down how you would explain to a non-Christian how God's grace has transformed your identity, purpose, and way of life.
Identify one area where you've been trying to earn God's favor rather than receive his grace.
Describe how Jesus perfectly demonstrated the freedom and joy of obedience.
Choose one practical step that would express both resting in grace and surrendering to Christ.
Examples: confessing a hidden sin (trusting grace covers it), forgiving someone who hurt you (extending the grace you've received), or sacrificially serving someone without recognition (expressing grace-empowered surrender).
Have an honest conversation with a trusted friend about your struggles with either cheap grace or legalism.
Who in your life needs to hear about the transforming power of grace rather than just more rules or expectations?
How will your life be driven by grace, love, and friendship with God?
What would it look like to surrender another area of your life to God?
Which verses do you want to add to your life plan?
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