Sometimes difficult teachings contain joy in them. This devotional is one of those teachings.
Note: I use myself in this brief commentary out of ignorance. I don’t know what you or others do to practice the law of discipleship. Therefore, I’m left with me. That is sad. Please feel free to add in the comments section how you practice this law.
First, let’s look at this primary law of discipleship from Jesus: Luke 9:23-24, Then he [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
This concept is so important that it is also recorded in Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34 as well as Paul’s declarations in Romans 8:36 and 1 Corinthians 15:31. It’s so crucial that Meyer’s NT Commentary points out that the phrase, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it,” in the Greek can be translated, “however, shall have lost himself, or have suffered damage.”
The idea that Jesus proclaimed goes far beyond denying ourselves some pleasure or profit. Nevertheless, denials can serve as reminders, hence the reason for “Ash Wednesday” and Lent leading up to Easter Sunday. So, here’s what I try to do, daily, all year. It may seem dumb to you and please know I am NOT saying these are what you need to do.
- In the morning I make it a point of reading a Scripture before I read anything else. Yes, even Facebook. 😉
- I make it a practice not to eat before I read at least a passage of Scripture and pray.
- I typically write my devotionals during this time. I may eat while writing, but occasionally I feel that the Holy Spirit wants me to stay focused, so I delay breakfast.
- I make it a point to daily pray the Lord’s prayer, not because I believe it is an ecumenical mandate but because I want to spiritually join all the other Christians in the world that are praying the words of Jesus to our Father.
- Throughout the day I look for ways to put the law of discipleship into practice. That may including talking to a stranger about Jesus, working on my devotional websites instead of my two technical sites, and so forth.
- Praying to our Father for the guidance, promotion, health, and welfare of those on my prayer list – this includes you and each person that has taken their time to read a devotional on my site.
- Ministering, if God so chooses to use me.
- Other stuff that is for Christ but I won’t share lest I lose my blessing in them.
Any day that I fail to put into practice this law of discipleship is a day wherein I suffer damage. My prayer is that you make this is a day of gain and blessing; take up your cross for Jesus.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash