How to Follow

The Gospel is epic. It's the story of the century, of eternity, of all creation. What a marvelous God we have! How much we have to rejoice in! Though the world will seek to corrupt and destroy us, how can we stop from singing our praises?

Just musing on the reality of martyrdom. If you follow Christ, death is guaranteed. Indeed Jesus says to count the cost of following him:

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
(Luke 9:23 ESV)

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and 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, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
(Luke 14:25-33 ESV)

The cost? Giving up everything for the sake of His Name! Our lives are forfeit! Indeed in our baptism we proclaim the DEATH of Jesus and the RESURRECTION of Jesus in a new and perfect body! We are proclaiming that we died with Him and that our faith and hope is for our own resurrection and being raised in new bodies.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
(Romans 6:1-11 ESV)

If this is truly what we are proclaiming in our baptism, what will our life as Christians look like? death.
If we are baptized into death (and future hope in life), how are we to follow Christ? denying ourselves.

For the sake of the Gospel, we must be ready to die for it. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch considering we have placed our hopes into a suffering Messiah who has yet to come into His glory. So we are ambassadors and forerunners of the future Kingdom evidenced through a theology of suffering and mourning and also fasting.

And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
(Mark 2:19-20 ESV)

Our Jesus, our bridgegroom is not here yet! HE HASN'T COME BACK YET! How can we as Christians (Followers of Christ) REJOICE when He isn't here with us? We haven't had our wedding feast yet! How can we celebrate!

Our total mindset, heart attitude, and ministries should reflect this truth. It's not okay until Jesus comes back.
We should be expecting things to get worse and worse and worse. This world is groaning and waiting for redemption, but until then: expect great trials and tribulatons.

All of Revelations and the prophets promise great pains. For those who love Christ, expect pain and death. It's only through seeking death that we will find life.