Odd or Fanatical Life-Style

'Any "soldier", any candidate for Christian discipline, ought daily to report to his commanding officer for duty. At your service, Lord. What the soldier does for the officer is not in the category of a favor. The officer may ask anything. He disposes of the soldier as he chooses. The very thought strikes honor to the modern mind. "Nobody's going to tell me what to do. Nobody has the right to dispose of me."

This pattern of thinking has its powerful effect on Christians as well, so that we have come to imagine that discipleship is somehow an "extra." We suppose that we can be Christians, going to church, saying our prayers, singing those sweet songs about loving and feeling and sharing and praising, without taking our share of hardship. Those who wish to make a special bid for sainthood, we tell ourselves, might try discipline ("it has its place") as though it were an odd or fanatical life-style, not the thing for most of us.

It is as though we might be Christians without being disciples.

"Yes, I want to be a Christian, but no, I don't want to be Your disciple, Lord. Not yet, anyway. It's a bit much to expect."

"Yes, I'll be a disciple, but no, I certainly don't want to leave self behind."

"I'll leave self behind if You say so, Lord, but don't ask me to take up any crosses. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with that."

"Follow You, Lord? Well, yes, sure-but let me have a little input, won't You, about where we're going?"

Nothing could be further from the spirit of the Gospel. The very reason Christ died "... was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves, and should live for him who for their sake died and was raised to life."

To be a Christian in New Testament terms is to be a disciple. There are no two ways about it. We have a Savior who has forgiven and saved us from the penalty of sin. Most of us would happily settle for that. But He died to save us also from our sins, many of which we love and hate to part with. Christ could not have done this if He were not Lord over all the powers of evil. Jesus Christ is Savior because He is Lord. He is Lord because He is Savior. I cannot be saved from my sins unless I am also saved from myself, so Christ must be "commanding officer" in my life.'

- phenomenal excerpt from "Discipline:
The Glad Surrender" by Elisabeth Elliot