Jesus said the entry level requirement for discipleship is to be 'losing your own life.' What a negative marketing strategy for something that God wants to be embraced by the lost! "Come to Jesus and DIE!!! However, the only way God can have us become a transformed individual is by this process. The problem is a little like the present position of the England football team after the world cup 2010. To play for England you have to be English. The strange thing is, the manager is Italian and the idea is that his success can be imported to the team. They were very poor in the world cup and this confirmed my thoughts. I would rather see an English manager lead the team and the team find its own true level that attempt to bring in outside influences that may bring about imported success at some stage. To me there's no point in winning if the entire outfit didn't reflect the true state of English football. Its cheating! In the same way, many Christians import things from the outside to aid Christian living. This doesn't allow the individual to have a reality check on the true state of their heart, like the England team, it draws from foreign elements to gain authentication. Jesus has an authentic way that involves 'losing your own life.'
So what mechanism has 'losing your own life' got in God? There are two ways in which we can live our Christian lives. Firstly, we can change our behaviour and practices in order to live like God wants us to. This seems fine until we realise that we are able to bypass the real state of our core self and change behaviour based on expectations of the pastor, pride, people, performance etc. God didn't tell us to be-have, he told us to be-changed! The way 'losing' works is by eliminating all the elements that would protect our core self. God sees our core self but he wants us to see it! So here's an example- Peter: "ill never deny you Jesus" (bypassing core self) Pete later : "Jesus who?" (the core self). When this was revealed to him, and I'm sure many things not recorded, he was able to be changed. The reason is because when we see the true state of our hearts we are broken and crumple to our knees in repentance before our Lord. This way we can offer our core self to God, not just perceived behaviours that we think constitute a Christian walk. The result is that when God has worked in a transforming way, practices and behaviours naturally pour from the believer. These become the catalyst for change in this world rather than just surface adjustments, expected Christian nuances and controlled temperament which leads to 'having a form of Godliness, but denying it's power.'
The way we can ensure we are aware of our core selves is to ask ourselves a series of 'ouch' questions:
- Am I committed to give up the conditioned responses of Christianity to be ACTUALLY changed?
- Am I ready to undertake the process of exploring my true heart motivations, warts and all?
- Is my Christian environment asking me to be-have or allowing me to be-changed?
- Does preaching, leaders or discipleship courses change my core self or just ask for a change of behaviour?
- Do I want to be changed at core level to perhaps NEVER be a prominent minister/ministry?
- Can I distinguish between God's expressed will for me to be transformed and the expectation on me to perform?
- Have I imported 'managers' to play karaoke to Jesus in my life?
The challenge to Christianity is authenticity. We have rightly appealed for Godly character to be formed but have we settled for Caricatures? Does our insecurity or lack of faith lead to being more like a Christian than more like Christ? Do we fail to question our church environment because it perpetuates 'self' when self needs to be cross-bound? I don't want England to win the world cup with imported help and I don't want to take another step in Christ unless it is entirely managed by my Creator.
Gary Ward
