THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISCIPLESHIP
2 Corinthians 13:4 For to be
sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we
are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him to serve you.
The
great marvel of Jesus was that He was voluntarily weak. Any coward among us can
hit back when hit, but it takes an exceedingly strong nature not to hit back.
Jesus Christ never did. If we are going to follow His example we shall find
that all His teaching leads along that line. But ultimately, at the final
wind-up of His great purpose, those who have followed His steps reign with Him.
Those who reign with Him are not the sanctified in possibility, in ecstasy, but
those who have gone through actually. Equal duties, not equal rights, are the
keynote of the spiritual world; equal rights are the clamor of the natural
world. The protest of power through grace, if we are following Jesus, is that
we no longer insist on our rights, we see that we fulfill our duty.
That is the
philosophy of a poor, perfect, pure discipleship. Remember, these are not
conditions of salvation, but of discipleship. Those of us who have entered into
a conscious experience of the salvation of Jesus by the grace of God, whose
whole inner life is drawn towards God, have the privilege of being disciples,
if we will. The Bible never refers to degrees of salvation, but there are
degrees of it in actual experience. The spiritual privileges and opportunities
of all disciples are equal; it has nothing to do with education or natural
ability. “One is your Master, even Christ.” We have no business to bring in
that abomination of the lower regions that makes us think too little of
ourselves; to think too little of ourselves is simply the flip-side of conceit.
If I am a disciple of Jesus, He is my Master, I am looking to Him, and the
thought of self never enters. So crush on the threshold of your mind any of
those lame, limping ‘Oh, I can’ts, you see I am not gifted.’ The great
stumbling-block in the way of some people being simple disciples is that they
are gifted, so gifted that they won’t trust God. So clear away all those things
from the thought of discipleship; we all have absolutely equal privileges, and
there is no limit to what God can do in and through us.
If Thou Wilt Be Perfect by Oswald Chambers, pg.110-111.