I’m stealing this from Noah Taylor, from a teaching he gave at Rose Creek Village last Saturday while we were at the conference, and posting this under the “Disciples and Believers” series … ties in really well. I’ll be putting this in my own words, since I didn’t take detailed notes or have Noah’s … hopefully he’ll forgive me.
(I steal stuff all the time, by the way, and try to give credit when I do. God does give me stuff individually, but when I recognize the truth, I try to assimilate it as best I can, no matter what the source might be. Fortunately Noah is a man who loves God and seeks, above all things, to do His will.)
Some people treat Christianity like high school. Which is funny because a lot of people hated high school … might explain some things actually …
You get up and go to school where there are these rules to follow, and many of them don’t have any real reason to exist except to keep the machine going. Things like standards of dress and behavior are more strict than you’d like them to be, but you submit to it because you kinda have to and then wait for that bell to ring at the end of the day so you can leave and do what you want. While you’re there, you sit in classes and regurgitate information; you’re segregated by age group and some notion of ability; you make friends based on common interests or culture outside of school; and again, when that bell rings, you get to wear what you want and go where you want. The culture of high school stays there while now you have the freedom to be your own person. You might have homework (devotions), but most people don’t really do much of that, either.
The Bible describes a different experience of Christianity altogether. It is the boot camp experience. Your life is over. Your stuff is taken and the Army now determines what you will wear and what you will do every moment of the day. They put you through rigorous personal training. Just when you think you can’t do any more, you do. They decide when you wake up, eat, sleep. They decide your job and when you have to do it. They do all this because they are training you for a battle.
And you go through all this with a bunch of other guys, and you’re told that the only way you survive is if the dude next to you watches your back – and the only way he survives is if you watch his. Doesn’t matter if you like him or not. Doesn’t matter who he is or where he comes from, but your life and death are not intimately tied to these other individuals.
There are guys who go to military reunions every year even though they spent only a few months or a couple years with these other guys. Why? They went through boot camp together and then through BATTLE. They shared an experience that made these men closer than any other relationship they ever had or ever would have – men they would not have chosen to be with, but now count as closer than brothers.
Jesus discipled by bootcamp. They dropped their nets and gave up their very lives, “everything to follow You,” Peter says, and they went through it all together for three and a half years, many times under the very real threat of death.
Then He sent them out and said, “Go make disciples.” You think they changed the paradigm? Not a chance. They knew exactly what He meant.
When talking about following the call with Timothy, Paul says, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
This is Christianity as the Bible describes it. My mentor used to say, “You haven’t been invited to a cruise ship; you’ve been recruited to serve on a battleship.” Discipleship is a bootcamp experience with the Body of Christ where you are given a new life, a new purpose, and equipped through great hardship and training to fulfill it. You’ve been given a new family, new friends, closer and more intimately connected than any other relationship you’ve ever had.
Sadly, this is not the experience of most modern/ Western Christians. We may agree with it in principle or ideal, but we do not live it.
Well … some of us have … and do. And it is a blessed thing.
Peace.