Forsaking All

They forsook all and followed Him. Luke 5:11b

And he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Luke 5:28

Forsook: renounce or give up (something valued or pleasant).

What a thought… To forsake all. These verses have been resonating in my head the last few days. My heart is longing for more than what I see and feel around me when it comes to American Christianity. Something is missing from our pews and pulpits. People are full of religion yet starving to death. Fed sermons of health, wealth, and prosperity, their flesh is being fed, but their souls are withering away.

These men forsook all, they left everything to follow Christ. What would that be like? A lot of Christians can hardly give up an extra hour of sleep to spend time in the Word and prayer before the day starts. They don’t want to give up a full day on Sunday to go to service, and if they do go, they don’t want the pastor to go on too long, there are football games to watch. We want to follow Christ, but only on our terms, and within our comfort levels.

My heart aches for more than American Christianity. Where is the zeal and passion for Christ? Where is the power of the Holy Spirit? We have created a weak God who requires nothing more of me than to be happy, and ‘do good’. If religion begins to start asking things of our behavior, lifestyle, etc. it is instantly labeled archaic and legalistic.

Where is the forsaking? Where is the giving up of oneself to the following of Christ?

What would that even look like today?

I see families working endless hours, struggling to make ends meet, while the new house is being built, car payments going out every month, and children’s rooms full of toys and gadgets. Stress has become the norm, searching and hustling for more ways to make money on the side. Always more. Money has become a large daily pursuit for the majority of people. And in the end for what purpose? Have we ever pursued Christ with that much enthusiasm?

My heart goes to a simple life. Why do we ‘need’ the bigger home, newer car, toys, clothes, computers, etc.?

Our work for Christ, our real reason for being here is suffering drastically, while we pursue all these worldly possessions.

What if we gave up the expensive mortgages, the car payments, and lived a small simple life? What if you didn’t need that second or third job? Imagine how much more time there would be to share the gospel, to get into the community, to feed the hungry, and care for the widows and fatherless.

We want religion without sacrifice, rewards in heaven without work on earth.

I can not shake these questions in my head, the hurt in my heart, and the emptiness in our churches.

We fight tooth and nail against anything that might resemble suffering. What if the ‘suffering’ was where the most work for Christ could be done. We have been very blessed in America, and what most Americans would call suffering, is nowhere near the suffering that Christians around the world and throughout history have gone through. I’m not talking about being beaten or imprisoned (although that may be a reality for us at some point).

I’m just talking about forsaking our ideas of what life should look like, what we have been trained to believe is success in the eyes of the world. Giving up our possessions for the work of Christ.

What if we lived in a small shack, without closets full of clothes, and gave all of our free time and money to the spreading of the gospel, to loving and caring for others, and for making an impact. We love to read stories about Christians who made their life a living sacrifice to Christ, we praise them and say “Wow, what it must be like to live and love Christ like that.” Yet, when it comes to forsaking our comforts like they had to we shrink back, and overcrowd our minds with the work of the earthly possessions, the sacrifice of the saints becomes a faint memory.

We have satisfied ourselves with mediocre Christian living, with the ritual of a Sunday service and the sermon well forgotten by Monday morning.

Is Christ satisfied with our lives? Have we failed Him?

I heard someone say to me that they ‘didn’t want to go to heaven yet cause they had a lot more fun things they wanted to do here before they had to go.’ And sadly those ‘fun’ things had absolutely nothing to do with sharing the gospel or living for Christ. It was all self-focused things, trips, experiences, etc. My heart broke at that realization. I fear far too many claiming Christians do not live with Jesus and heaven in their thoughts. Heaven is a safety net, a place of not quite as much pleasure and fun as earth, but much better than hell. So let me live my life here and have all the fun I want and then I’ll be okay to go to heaven.

The idea of forsaking our life here for the work of Christ is not even on most people's radar. It’s for those ‘extremist’ who take their religion too far and too serious, or so I’m told.

I can not begin to fathom the complete and udder devastation we are going to face when this life comes to an end, and we are standing before the throne of God giving an account for the lives we lived. When we watch everything we’ve done with our little vapor of time on earth burn to the ground as hay and stubble.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 1 Cor. 3:11-15

I think we think far too little about eternity. I wonder if some of us truly believe it exists? I fear we grasp at the straws of religion and we talk and think about heaven and eternity with the same amount of care and thought that we do mowing the lawn or doing dishes. It is a distant place, little thought of and rarely desired until life has been lived to its ‘fullest enjoyment’ here.

I think we need more daily reminders of heaven and life in eternity. Heaven isn’t the final resort after we’ve had our fun here. Heaven is living in the presence of Jesus, the restoration of the oneness that was abandoned in the Garden of Eden. It is complete and udder fulfillment. Pleasure beyond imagination. Sitting in the presence of our Lord and King, forever. To never again be separated. Why does that sound so dull to most people, why is that not our constant longing?

Do we not realize that what we do here, in this life, matters in eternity?

When we think of the cross and the sacrifice made there by Jesus, the purchasing of our salvation. Do we not owe Him all we can give of this body and life? Some of us live as though His sacrifice was not a precious gift, we talk about it so mundanely that the power of what He did has been lost in our lives. “Oh yeah, Jesus died for my sins…..” Do we not grasp the gravity of the situation. Do we not see what it cost Him, and what He saved us from? I don’t think heaven, hell, or our sins are real enough in our lives. We talk about it like it's all fiction from a good book, and then go about our lives, without any real gratitude or life-changing behavior.

Until the severity of our sins and the reality of hell is fully realized in our lives, I fear the thought of forsaking all for Christ will be just another ‘story’ from history.

Imagine for a moment, standing before the throne on judgment day, escorted in by your Savior, and all you have done in this life is before you, God lights it afire, to try it. As the smoke clears you see sadness come across Jesus’s face, you look to the pile of what was your life, and there is nothing but smoldering ash.

You see His nail-pierced hands, and the vast expanse of eternity, and then you are hit with the seriousness of what you have done. No one likes to talk about this, but we can suffer loss in heaven on judgment day.

“If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” 1 Cor. 3:15

Yes, you will be saved, but I can not begin to imagine the pain and devastation that will be felt realizing this life was lived for self and that we didn’t forsake all for the King who laid down His own life for ours. Is it not the least we could do for such a gift as was bestowed upon us?

What are fleshly pleasures but a moment. And then there is another one to be had, and more and more. Always yearning and never fully satisfied. That yearning can and will only be fully fulfilled with Jesus Christ. Will we forsake all for Him? Will we suffer in the moment of our vapor, to have something to give Him in eternity?

We can not even fathom the joy that will fill us if we are blessed enough to hear “Well done thy good and faithful servant.” I promise that will bring more joy and happiness than all the adventures this world has to offer.

Will you forsake all and follow Christ?