• The Bible Studies for Life for March 10 focuses on Luke 9:20-26,57-62.
There once was a young boy who had a crush on a girl in his Sunday school class. From first grade through college, the chase was on. He chased her up and down the stairwell of the Baptist church they attended. He chased her through the halls of their middle school. And he continued to chase the beautiful, drill-team dancer when they reached high school.
Their relationship moved from chasing to dating during college. They both grew, and their love for one another deepened as they experienced life together in church, with common friends, and as they planned and prepared for their careers. They loved each other and looked forward to the days ahead.
One rainy night, the young man finally proposed to the young woman. He told her of his love and his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. The young woman did not give the proposal much thought and excitedly responded with a confident “yes!” They hugged and kissed and celebrated this monumental moment.
Dating around
As the young woman savored the moment and sought to press the memory deeply in her mind, the young man interrupted her thoughts with another proposal. He said, “Now that we know we are getting married and will spend the rest of our lives together, why don’t we take some time to date around?”
When we take a serious evaluation of our relationship with Christ, we find ourselves dating around. We want the ultimate promise of life with him including hope, peace, unconditional love, forgiveness and the incredible bonus of eternal life, but we also want to see what else is out there. We want to pursue our own ambitions and see where they take us. We want to see how many bonuses we can earn at work when our job takes priority.
We want to chase after money, nice things and popularity. We want to live in the moment and choose the things that promise instant gratification, even if they are not the best for us in the long run. We want to put ourselves first. Sure, we will go to church and learn a few things along the way. We will be filled, momentarily, with passion for Jesus’ calling and obedience. We really do love him. But ultimately, we just want to date around until its time to get really serious and settle down.
Complete committment
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In Luke, Jesus demanded complete commitment: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (9:23). He required us to die to our priorities and dreams and pursuits and chase after him only. Just as it is ridiculous to suggest dating around after proposing marriage, so it is ridiculous to meet the Lord and Creator of the universe and then say you want to experiment following other masters.
Jesus says to die daily to the world and its rulers and to live in obedience to him. The relationship may not be perfect all the time, but we are to remain committed to him, and he will lead us through the hard times.
How do we frail, broken humans begin to commit to Jesus? How do we follow him? What does it mean to take up our cross? We must begin by taking time to know our Lord. The more we know him, the more we are drawn to him above others. We must know his story and the way he has worked in the world up to this day. We must know his personality, attributes and strengths. We must know how he pursues us daily with a love we never can return. We must know his promises, as well as his commands regarding the way we live.
Spend time with Jesus
We can only know these details if we spend time in his word, in prayer and in community with other followers. The more we know him, the more we love him. And the more we love him, the more we are inclined to obey him.
Will we still have the desire to date around? Will our eyes and hearts still wander toward the masters of this world? As long as we are human, we will fight this battle. But the more we know and love Jesus, the more quickly our eyes and hearts will be turned back and reconciled to our first love.
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