Discipleship - the Answer

The foulest, most loathsome gospel, is that which denies the living-ness of the Messiah. It denies and mutilates the grace of God. It is a perversion and an Antichristian doctrine that is not based on the Word of God but the carnal desires of men. 

Cheap grace – the denial of the living work of God, that salvation and faith cannot be lived out, that trust in God merely a lip-service. 

Perhaps for so long a church-goer has been embittered by the lack of God’s transformative power in the preaching, so much so that the preaching of righteousness becomes a heavy burden and devoid of liberty, grace, and truth. When we lose the grace of God in our preaching, and yet preach righteousness, it is the letter and the letter kills. People are turned away from the truth because of legalism, the clinging to outwards forms to disguise inner emptiness. We fail to drink from the fountain of living waters and in consequence can only preach legalism: the law of sin and death. 

We can cling to church buildings, styles of worship, modes of preaching, gospel presentations, and such, not evil, but empty - devoid of grace, devoid of truth, devoid of God, just a religion and a form.

Man’s solution to the preaching of works without the faith to produce it is to cut off works. There is no power, so why should people live righteous lives? Therefore, we should just live like the world. After all, anything more than complacency and any attempt to live unlike the world is only fruitless striving. Somewhere, deep inside, we are made righteous we God. We don’t need to do anything. To do anything is wrong- striving you see, fruitless pursuit of righteousness which we can never attain to and should not attain to. That is cheap grace and lawlessness – the law of sin and death. 

Do you know what costly, true, grace? It is the grace of God from the Messiah and in the Messiah poured out to the sinner. It fills him with forgiveness and repentance. God is revealed to the sinner, and God will never let him go. God has given the sinner undeserved riches – and filled him with the power of the Holy Spirit, the power to change. God washes him clean, and brings him into eternal life. The sinner is now righteous, and the Spirit of God in him transforms him into the image of God. This grace that was bestowed upon him now prevails upon him to leave all that he has, take up His cross, and follow the Messiah. Grace is God loves us, and God giving us the love in which we are consumed by Him and enabled to love the lost. 

Sometimes we just need to get down on our knees before God and cry out Him, asking Him to restore to us the true gospel, not in word only but in power. We badly need to the true, powerful, costly, precious grace of God. We need to be empowered to preach the true gospel of the Messiah, that says, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” and “Take up your cross and follow me”. 

That’s right. The gospel we preach is the cross. If there is no cross, there is no forgiveness, no redemption, no atonement, no resurrection. There must be the suffering before there is the glory. Those who come to the Messiah’s cross will, with Him and through Him, experience the power of His resurrection. 

Discipleship needs to be restored – not the commandments of men but yoke of the Messiah. Yeshua calls to all those who are wearied and burdened, come and take His yoke, for it is easy and light. He calls all who thirst to drink of the living waters of life, and He will make living waters to flow out from you. He calls those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. He calls the blind, the death, the oppressed, the overburdened. He calls them to take up their cross and follow Him. In Him is life everlasting. In Him is peace. In Him are joy, and eternal rewards. 

What is the normal Christian life? To live the life of Christ. To be His disciple, following Him, and longing to be like Him, fixing our eyes on Him, hearing His voice, obeying Him in perfect trust.

What is legalism then? It is non-existent. You will follow Him because you trust him. You will obey Him because you love Him. He is your everything. Your life is bound in Him.