If you go to the grocery store you will see a myriad of lite products.  Most of the products make promises that they will have all the flavour and half the calories or something to that extent.  Many times I have been disappointed with these products and they have not lived up to their billing.  I remember I once bought a lite margarine and tried making some grilled cheese sandwiches with it.  It just made the bread soggy and it stuck to the frying pan.  Now, I know not all these products are bad, but generally I have found them to be a pale substitute of the original.

  Sometimes, on my spiritual journey I have tried to live a lite version of faith in Jesus Christ.  All the benefits and rewards of being in a relationship with Him, without too much cost.  The theme song of this group would be “I Surrender 10%”

Ten Percent to Jesus I surrender.
A little bit I grudgingly give
I will sort of love and trust him,
In his presence, when I have time.

Ten Percent to Jesus I surrender.
Might give a Sunday all to Thee
Worldly pleasures partially forsaken
But, I want your blessings to fall on me.

I surrender ten percent
I surrender ten percent
Ten percent to Jesus I surrender
I surrender ten percent.

Jesus was pretty clear on the kind of commitment that he was looking for from his followers.  It was his radical call it this area that really thinned the ranks, because it was really a call to die.  The famous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

  The apostle Paul expressed this in Romans 6:11 when he says, “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  He goes on and reiterates the same thought in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

David Nasser in his book A Call to Die challenges his readers to answer this question, “”Will you make the effort to find your tailor-made call to die?”

  Listen to what he writes:

The call to die is open to all of us who believe, but few of us will follow when we know the real cost of discipline.  It's much easier to be a nice Christian than a radical one.  It's much more fun to be entertained by Jesus and the church than to struggle and strain in the pursuit of purity and the presence of God.  No, the call to die is not for everybody – only for those who are serious about experiencing the greatest adventure that life has to offer.  If you choose to answer that call, you will be in for some very hard moments, but take heart: it's well worth it in the end.  “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)*

We are trying to move as a church to be disciples who make disciples.  But I think the issue you and I need to confront if we want to do this is,  have I counted the cost (like Jesus asked us to do) and am I going to really be a disciple of Christ?

Jesus met a man who was keen on being a follower and he wanted to know what he had to do.  He wanted to know what he was signing up for – the bottom line.  Jesus knew his heart and saw that the number one thing that was going to hinder him in following Christ was his stuff.  So, he told the man – sell it all.  Scripture tells us that he left Jesus a sad man, because he couldn't do it.

Jesus meets us and the same way.  He looks at your heart and finds the one thing that is standing in the way of us being a fully-committed disciple of him.  He tells us to let that one thing go.  It may be the one thing from scripture, the letting go of our money and possessions, it may be our security, it may be our plans, it may be a relationship or it may be something else.  But Jesus knows what it is, and so do you.  He tells us to let it go and follow Him.  Could this be part of the reason depression is rampant in the church?  Could this be the reason we feel so unfulfilled in our activities?  We have been confronted with Jesus' call of discipleship and we have walked away sad.

Jesus will never be content with a lite-commitment to him.  He will never be satisfied with a 10% surrender to him.  He likes the original version of the song – ALL to Jesus I surrender.

John

* David Nasser; A Call to Die Copyright 2000 Redemptive Art Publishing pg.17
http://www.amazon.ca/Call-Die-Journey-Fasting-Feasting/dp/097924790X