Eternally following

 This week's verses are on John 8:31-33:

Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “We are descendants of Abraham,” they replied, “and have never been anyone’s slaves! How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” 

 As Christians we hear a lot about obedience, and being a disciple. In this tiny excerpt, we see two bad philosophies that are major causes of a failed Christian life and one good philosophy that comes from Jesus himself.

Jesus tells the Judeans, "If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples." A lot of times we hear obedience portrayed in the same context that a prison guard might describe it. "Do what I say, right now, no questions, or I am going to send you to Hell." It's as if we're marionettes and God is the puppet master, and if we don't jump when he pulls the strings, it ruins his show and he flies into a rage and tears us all to bits. It's a form of obedience that only exists in the moment, in the flesh acting out the command, without extending further in time or deeper into the heart. That is not what Jesus is talking about here.

It's the continuation of obedience that Jesus is talking about here. Will the people excited in the moment still be excited in a week? If Jesus isn't watching them, will they still be interested in doing the things he asks? In other words, if the teaching takes root in the Judeans' hearts, that's what it means for them to be his disciple. 

Elsewhere he talks about building a house and then seeing if it stands, or using fire to purify things to see what remains. What he's saying is it's all well and good to be excited about Jesus in church, but what about when you're confronted with temptation or a difficult opportunity to forgive an impossible person?

The Judeans misunderstood both the question and the answer. They reply that they are descendants of Abraham. In other words, they believe they are set for life because they've identified with a religion. Nowadays someone might excuse themselves from discipleship by proudly telling you what denomination they are part of, or explaining how they've been to seminary. As if those experiences somehow let you shed the cocoon of sinfulness and let you emerge with glittery butterfly wings of religiosity that let you fly above all of that cross-bearing nonsense that lesser forms of humanity have to endure. 

So while the "do it! do it now!" believers fail in the sense of being too stuck in the moment, the "glued to Abraham's couch" believers fail in the sense of being too removed from the moment. One is shallow and legalistic and lives in a constant state of needing to be told what to do by religious authorities (or their own religiosity) and the other is apathetic and complacent and delegates their faith to dead and credentialed strangers.

So if you want to avoid those traps, the "just right" path of discipleship is the one that internalizes Jesus' teaching. He describes that as the way to know the truth, and says that the truth will set us free. The words used to describe being set free are ones that might be used for emancipating slaves or releasing people from bondage of some kind. Nowadays we might use words like "securing your release from the prison of sin." 

What he's describing is a life-long process, not a course you go to, and one which results in being free of a lot of the things we don't even know enslave us. (Or that we do know, but don't know that it is possible to be truly free of them.) This is why the Abraham-followers were outraged. The "hear it now and do it now" believers were focused on the present. The Abraham-believers were focused on the past. And here Jesus was, asking for the future, for all time. It's a lot more than they bargained for.

Do you ever find yourself not doing anything because you're "waiting on God?" Or do you confine your Christianity to the day of your baptism as a child, or your confirmation, or the day you prayed a prayer, or maybe the last church service you went to? If so, Jesus is talking to you especially.

If you're an in-the-moment believer, maybe you can ask for understanding on God's character. Ask for the Holy Spirit to shape your heart such that it resembles the heart of Christ, so that your actions and values will match his without being explicitly told what to do every time. Instead of your faith life being a kind of animatronic replica of Jesus' life, you will become a living representative.

If you're a "got my faith vaccination years ago, don't need a booster yet" believer, maybe you can ask for the Holy Spirit to show you he's alive today, and that living a Christlike life is not just for saints and preachers, but for you today, and not just as an option but as an imperative. He will help reawaken you and get you off the couch. 

Our God is a god of yesterday, and he is a God of today, but he is also a God of eternity. If you're just happy with the past, or the moment you're in, you're missing out on most of what he has to offer.

It's only when we invite God into our lives and internalize what he shows us that we experience enough to know the truth and the freedom it brings. You can't learn grace and love without engaging with the world with Christ in your heart. You can't be free of sin if you never try anything different when you realize you're off course. What does your life look like when you're not in church? When your Christian friends aren't around? That's when we should be paying attention, because those are the times we learn the best lessons about discipleship.