A couple days ago I started reading the book Spent Matches by Roy Moran. The final sentences of the first chapter have been stuck in my mind since I read them:
“[Are you] willing to keep asking the question, ‘What needs to be done?’ and not default to the cop out, ‘I’ll just do what I can do’?”
Spent Matches, p.24
This morning in my Bible reading I came across some strong words from Jesus that reinforce Moran’s question:
And he (Jesus) said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9:23-27
Too often we settle for the cop out option when it comes to following Jesus rather than going all-in and taking the risk of trust and whole-hearted obedience.
Making Excuses
There are hundreds of handy, thoroughly reasonable excuses for not doing “what needs to be done” in following Jesus. I’ve gotten intimately familiar with some of them as a parent of two kids under the age of four. Every age and every stage of life has a plethora of excuses at hand:
- “I’m too tired…”
- “The kids will miss their naps and the rest of the day will be hell…”
- “I don’t have the skills needed…”
- “I’m too busy with work/school/family…”
- “I don’t have the money….”
- “I don’t know that person…”
- “I’ve got a meeting…”
- “If I say that it might ruin our relationship…”
All of our cop outs, at their root, stem from fear and unbelief. If we truly believed that Jesus is who he said he is we wouldn’t even think of making excuses when he calls us to do something. But instead our fear keeps us from going all in and our unbelief keeps us from seeing Jesus for who he really is. And that, my friends, keeps the world around us from seeing the goodness and power of God displayed in our lives.
Stopping the excuses
The question for each of us is this; what is God calling me to do today? This week? What step of faith is the Holy Spirit prompting you to take? What thing has God put in front of you that’s making you anxious because you know it’s risky and requires a level of faith that you’re not sure you’re comfortable with?
When Jesus sent out the 12 and the 72, he insisted that they go without money or extra clothing. Just walk down the road trusting that God would provide a place to stay and food to eat. Talk about radical demands. No space for comfort or excuses. The result of their faith-filled risk taking? They experienced the miraculous and discovered supernatural joy. “The seventy two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’” (Luke 10:17)
I want to have the joy of being able to come to Jesus and declare with joy that God has done the miraculous in and through me – that the most unlikely of people have found salvation and forgiveness, that sick have been healed, that spiritual strongholds have been broken, and that people have been set free to be who they were created to be in Christ. Don’t you?
That’s not going to happen if we’re staying comfortable, even if we have brilliant excuses for why we need to do so. It’s going to require us going all in, doing as we’ve been commanded, doing what needs to be done as we flow from the love that has been given us. Let’s not be the people who lose their eternal souls because we did such a good job of protecting our lives. Instead let’s take the risk and follow Jesus with all we have.
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