Yeahhh! Thursday night, we hit on some passages at the very heart of what Catered is all about. It was hard hitting and extremely challenging.

Zach kicked us off by reading a challenging passage in Luke 14 where Jesus was teaching some hard hitting truth about what it means to follow Him.

Luke 14:25-27
If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Yikes! At first glance this looks like a contradiction to Jesus' teachings regarding loving and serving each other, so our discussion first worked out what "hate" meant in this passage. After digging into the original meaning, we saw that the word used here was a Semitic expression that meant to "love less than" in comparison. It is used elsewhere in the Bible and always seems to infer choosing one thing over another. In this case, Jesus was teaching that if someone was not willing to love Him and choose Him over their family members, and even their own life, then they have not counted the cost of following Jesus. This was clarified in verse 33.

Luke 14:33
In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

Whew, so at least we know Jesus wasn't saying we need to hate our families in the way we may tend to "hate." But now we have this challenge to live for Christ to the degree that we are choosing Him over everyone and everything else.

Our discussion drew us back to Luke 9, where Jesus addresses this topic head on as well and he also turns people away because he sets the bar high. He says we have to give up our life for ourselves entirely and follow him, and if we are wanting to hold onto anything for ourselves, we cannot be his disciples.

Luke 9:23-25
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

Later in verses 57-62, Jesus applies this to people who say they wish to follow him. But each person has something that they wanted to hold onto, or something that held them back from following entirely. And He calls them on it and finally says that "no one who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Luke 18:18-29 gives an account of the rich young ruler. This is also an astounding passage to study and consider the scene carefully. The man comes to Jesus admitting that he needs salvation and he knows only Jesus can offer it. But even with this profession, the ultimate result is the same as the other people from these passages. Jesus sees the man does not want to give up his life because he loves his life and the things in it too much. The man would not be willing to love Jesus more. When Jesus puts his finger on this fact, the man leaves sadly without a life with Christ. He was not willing to lose his life, to gain true life.

Some Observations:

1. Jesus did not present the opportunity to be his disciple as something comfortable or easy.
In fact, he got that out on the table early so people would not be mislead. So too, we need to examine our own understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ. If we are expecting life to be easy and about us, then we have the wrong idea of what it means to follow and serve Him.

2. He asked us to give up everything up so we can follow Him.
This is what He asked of us, and is the only way it works. Without this kind of commitment, we will be continually frustrated at the lack of "Christ" in our lives. We will lack fellowship with Him, spiritual growth, victory over sin in our lives, ability to serve others with the fruit of the Spirit, impact for the kingdom, and so on. Now, on the flip side, there's a whole topic of depending on God's GRACE to learn and grow. We stumble and we fall, and we need to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ to know how rely on His grace as we learn to live this way. But the decision is one that is absolute. He asked us to make the decision to give it all. As with the "rich young ruler" Jesus is not content to become one of many things in your life that you will live for and depend on. He asked you to make Him your everything.

3. Giving everything, and living entirely for Christ does not necessarily mean quiting school, jobs, everything in our life and becoming a monk or pastor.
Praise God if He calls you into full time vocational ministry. But that is not what Jesus was calling for all his disciples to do this as their vocation. In fact, as the Apostles shared the gospel and people came to Christ, new converts were encouraged to live out Christ where they were at. Jesus needs wives and husbands, slave and free people, circumcised and uncircumcised, people of all communities to demonstrate the truth and the love of Christ. Do not seek to be free from these roles in order to serve Christ, serve where you're at so Christ has a witness in all walks of life.

Two Questions:

Given what Jesus' hard teachings require of His disciples, two very direct questions come to mind that we all need to be able to answer.

1. Do I really want to live my entire life for Christ?
Or let's get even more practical: tomorrow. Think about tomorrow. Do I desire to make tomorrow entirely about honoring Christ and serving Him? Or have I only committed to adding good "Christian" things to my life, like going to church, serving at a food pantry once a month, and praying between classes? These are good things, and they honor God. But if we are still living our lives for ourselves first and then adding some Christ to it, we honestly sound more like the others in these passages. In this kind of life we are not going to reflect Christ and grow in Him as He has planned.

2. If so, I have to ask honestly: HOW do I live for Christ and honor Him in EVERYTHING I do?
Anyone who gets serious about living for Christ in every way has to face the question: Do I know how to live for Him in the day-to-day things? It seems easier when we are on a mission trip, or at camp. But how do I "go to class" for Jesus? How do I put in a full week at work for Jesus? How do I sit a stop sign, or stand in line at Starbucks for Jesus?
Yes, there are good answers to these. And yes, it is possible to live every moment of every day for Christ in a very real and meaningful way. It starts with getting to know God's heart and what He desires for us and the world around us. This works out in the lives of the people who live for Him.

Why we meet:

Our discussion Thursday night discussed a number of these individual questions, and we admitted that many of us need to take this call more seriously. We also reaffirmed why we meet on Thursdays...

From the beginning of this group, we have existed as a group who wants to learn how to live "intentionally" for Christ in all areas of our life. We admitted in this world we don't often see what a life like that looks like and we don't by nature know how do live like this, but we want to make it a quest to learn and grow in this purpose. For those who sincerely want to learn how to do this, we decided to do this journey together. We meet every week to learn from the Word and with each other what it means to live for Him and make Him our everything. It takes learning, it takes pursuit, it takes encouragement, and it takes lots of prayer and lots of truth. But we've learned, this is the most important pursuit of life. It is possible. We are learning. It is amazing to live a life with Christ. We have much more to learn, and we are looking forward to learning more next week, next month, next year.

Lose your life, gain real life. And come on the journey with us so we can learn together.

Galations 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.