The Invitation: The Not-So-Simple Truth about Following Jesus
Soon after I accepted the invitation to follow Jesus, I started avoiding him at all costs. I can still remember the flash flood of joy I felt at that moment when I first entrusted my life to him, because for the first time I knew that I was going to live forever. And I was so excited when I bought my first Bible, with the words of Christ in red.But then I did something that turned my euphoria into vertigo. I read the words in red. I saw phrases like -"Hate your father and mother."-"Take up your cross."-"Do good to those who hate you."-"Sell your possessions."-"Be slave of all."I discovered that this man who called me to follow him was a radical.  Either that or I had purchased a defective Bible.  I borrowed my friends' Bibles and compared them to mine. Sure enough, theirs said the same thing. I pointed to Jesus' most shocking statements and asked them, "Have you read this?"They would just yawn and say, "Uh-huh."  I couldn't understand why they weren't as appalled as I was. To actually do what Jesus said was unthinkable to me. And yet I wanted to be a Christian--because I wanted to go to heaven. So I did the only sensible thing: I stopped reading the gospels.  I had wonderful devotions in the epistles, but I steered clear of Jesus.Then one day a simple question popped into my mind:How can I call myself a Christian if I don't follow Christ?That was when I decided to risk re-entry into the gospels. And my life hasn't been the same since. Those passages that used to intimidate me have become precious to me, and I cannot imagine reverting to a mild version of Christianity with all the hard sayings of Jesus edited out. How hollow that would be.Might you use that word--hollow--to describe your Christian experience? If so, could Christ-avoidance be the cause? Is it possible that you have been frightened away by his most revolutionary teachings, or that you have been insulated from them by tidy theology or by the trappings of Christianity? What might happen if you were to take a fresh, unfiltered look at the discipleship sayings of Jesus? There are seven of them in the gospels, and I wrote this book to help you think deeply about what obedience to each one would look like.  No doubt you'll wrestle with the same questions I have had:Did Jesus really mean that? Could I actually do that? What are my other options?But, as you take the risk of courageous obedience, you will discover that, even though Jesus is more than you bargained for, it is when you run to him, not from him, that you find the easy yoke and light burden he came to give.