Jesus Never Asked Us Simply to Believe

He asked us to follow him. And that may be far more demanding—and far more beautiful—than we have imagined.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
— Matthew 16:24

I have read those words most of my life.

But recently I found myself stopping at something I had probably read past a thousand times:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple…”

And a question occurred to me.

Are all Christians supposed to be disciples?

It sounds like an almost ridiculous question. Of course we are.

But I am not sure we have always lived as though that were true.

Somewhere along the way, particularly in modern Christianity, we seem to have created two categories of Christians.

There are believers—people who believe in Jesus, attend church, pray, read Scripture, and identify themselves as Christians.

And then there are disciples.

Those are the really serious ones.

Pastors. Missionaries. Monks. Saints. People who somehow decided to take Christianity to another level.

But I have been looking again at the words of Jesus, and I am having difficulty finding that distinction.

Jesus never seems interested in creating admirers.

He creates followers.

And there is a considerable difference.

What Is a Disciple?

The Greek word translated disciple is mathētēs.

It means a learner, pupil, apprentice, or follower.

But in the world of Jesus, becoming someone's disciple meant considerably more than attending his lectures or agreeing with his theology.

You followed the teacher because you wanted to learn how to live as the teacher lived.

You watched him.

You listened to him.

You walked where he walked.

You learned how he thought, how he responded, what he valued, and eventually you attempted to become like him.

Perhaps that is why Jesus' invitation was so beautifully simple:

“Follow me.”

Not:

Admire me.

Not even:

Understand everything about me.

But:

Follow me.

And when Jesus eventually sends his followers into the world, he tells them:

“Go and make disciples of all nations…”

Notice what he does not say.

He does not say:

Go make believers.

He says:

Make disciples.

That distinction has been haunting me.

Because believing something about Jesus and learning to live like Jesus may be two very different things.

And that brings us back to Matthew 16.

Jesus tells us exactly what discipleship requires:

Deny yourself.
Take up your cross.
Follow me.

Those three movements may contain almost the entire spiritual journey.

Deny Yourself

For years I misunderstood this.

I thought denying myself meant thinking less of myself.

Suppressing my desires.

Sacrificing enough.

Becoming somehow less human in order to become more spiritual.

But I no longer believe that is what Jesus meant.

Jesus never seems interested in making people less human.

Quite the opposite.

I believe Jesus shows us what a fully alive human being looks like.

So what are we denying?

Perhaps the answer is something psychology, neuroscience, contemplative spirituality, and the ancient wisdom traditions have all approached from different directions.

We human beings construct identities.

We learn very early what seems necessary to survive.

Be successful.

Be needed.

Be right.

Be strong.

Be different.

Be secure.

Be admired.

Avoid pain.

Maintain control.

The Enneagram gives us a particularly useful language for recognizing these patterns.

Over time these strategies become so familiar that we mistake them for ourselves.

This is just who I am.

But perhaps it isn't.

Perhaps much of what we call our identity is actually a collection of defenses, fears, habits, wounds, expectations, and stories accumulated over a lifetime.

I call this the constructed self.

Others have called it the ego or the false self.

And I wonder whether this is at least part of what Jesus is asking us to deny.

Not the person God created.

But the person we constructed because we forgot who God created.

There is an enormous difference.

Jesus is not asking you to destroy yourself.

He is inviting you to discover yourself.

But first something has to die.

Take Up Your Cross

We have heard the phrase so often that it has lost some of its terror.

“My cross to bear.”

We use it for inconveniences, difficult relationships, illnesses, irritating circumstances.

But the people standing around Jesus would not have heard the word cross metaphorically.

They knew exactly what a cross was.

It was an instrument of execution.

Imagine hearing Jesus say:

Pick up the instrument of your own death and follow me.

That changes the sentence.

Something has to die.

Paul eventually describes the same mystery:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

But again, Christianity contains a beautiful paradox.

What dies is not ultimately the person God created you to be.

What dies is everything preventing that person from becoming fully alive.

The ego.

The masks.

The compulsions.

The need to impress.

The need to control.

The desperate need to be right.

The identities built from success, failure, money, possessions, reputation, wounds, fear, and the expectations of other people.

And this is where Jesus says something extraordinary.

Immediately after telling us to deny ourselves and take up our cross, he says:

“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

Read those final two words again.

Find it.

That may be one of the most important promises Jesus ever made about being human.

You lose your life—

and somehow,

you find it.

The Great Paradox of the Soul

We spend much of the first half of life constructing ourselves.

We build careers.

Families.

Reputations.

Identities.

Belief systems.

Possessions.

Defenses.

Stories about ourselves.

Some of these things are necessary and good.

But eventually many of us discover something strange.

We built a life—

and somewhere along the way lost ourselves inside it.

Then Jesus comes along with an almost impossible proposition:

Let it go.

Not necessarily your career.

Not necessarily your possessions.

Not necessarily your relationships.

Something much deeper.

Let go of your need for those things to tell you who you are.

And then perhaps you can finally discover the person who was there before all the labels.

The person Scripture says was created in the image of God.

Imago Dei.

The Journey Back to the Image

This is where the entire biblical story begins to look different to me.

Genesis says:

You were created in the image of God.

Jesus says:

Follow me.

Paul says:

Put off the old self and put on the new self, created to be like God.

And Romans tells us:

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Perhaps these aren't disconnected theological ideas.

Perhaps they describe a journey.

We were created in the image of God.

But that image becomes obscured beneath fear, sin, wounds, ego, culture, expectations, and the identities we construct.

Then Christ calls us.

Follow me.

And following him begins the long process of uncovering what was buried.

This is why I have come to think of spiritual transformation almost as archaeology of the soul.

We aren't manufacturing a new human being.

We are excavating something ancient.

Something sacred.

Something that has been there from the beginning.

The image of God within us.

Take Up Your Cross Daily

Luke records Jesus' teaching with one additional word:

daily.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

That word changes everything.

Because discipleship isn't something that happened when I walked down a church aisle.

It isn't something that happened when I was baptized.

It isn't something that happened when I finally understood a theological doctrine.

It happens today.

And tomorrow.

And the day after that.

This is why I increasingly think of Christianity not merely as a belief system but as a praxis—a way of living what we say we believe.

Every day presents dozens of small crosses.

Someone wounds me.

Will I retaliate or forgive?

Someone disagrees with me.

Must I prove that I am right?

Someone succeeds.

Can I celebrate them without comparing myself?

Someone disappoints me.

Can I love without controlling?

I lose something.

Can I release it?

I am misunderstood.

Must I defend my reputation?

I become afraid.

Can I trust?

I encounter someone very different from me.

Can I see the image of God in them?

The cross appears in hundreds of ordinary disguises.

And each time Jesus whispers the same words:

Follow me.

Perhaps the Beatitudes Show Us Where

This is one reason I have spent so much time with the Beatitudes.

I don't think they are simply eight beautiful sayings placed near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

I think they describe what a human being undergoing this transformation begins to look like.

Poor in spirit.

Able to mourn.

Meek.

Hungry for righteousness.

Merciful.

Pure in heart.

A peacemaker.

Willing to suffer for what is right.

Read them slowly and something becomes apparent.

They sound remarkably like Jesus himself.

Perhaps the Beatitudes are not merely descriptions of people God blesses.

Perhaps they are a portrait of the human being Christ is forming.

Which means discipleship is not ultimately about becoming more religious.

It is about becoming more like Christ.

And paradoxically, the more like Christ we become, the more fully human we become.

Christianity Is Not a Spectator Sport

I wonder sometimes whether we have made Christianity too easy.

Believe the right things.

Attend the right church.

Read the right books.

Vote the right way.

Know the right theology.

Defend the right doctrines.

And certainly beliefs matter.

Truth matters enormously.

But Jesus keeps asking a much more uncomfortable question:

Are you following me?

Because it is entirely possible to know a great deal about Jesus without becoming much like Jesus.

I know that because after a lifetime of studying Scripture, theology, psychology, philosophy, religion, contemplation, and human behavior, I still encounter parts of myself that desperately resist those three simple instructions:

Deny yourself.
Take up your cross.
Follow me.

Perhaps that resistance is precisely where discipleship begins.

How Then Shall I Live?

This is the question beneath The Soulprint Project.

It is an ancient question.

Philosophers asked it.

Prophets asked it.

Mystics asked it.

Ordinary men and women have asked it while staring at ceilings in the middle of the night.

How then shall I live?

Jesus' answer may be simpler—and considerably more demanding—than we have made it.

Follow me.

Not simply believe things about me.

Not merely worship me from a distance.

Become my disciple.

Learn my way.

Practice my way.

Walk my way.

Love as I love.

Forgive as I forgive.

Serve as I serve.

See people as I see them.

Trust the Father as I trust the Father.

And slowly, perhaps almost imperceptibly, something begins to happen.

The false self loosens its grip.

The masks become unnecessary.

The person we spent a lifetime constructing begins to surrender.

And underneath all of it, we begin discovering someone we may have almost forgotten.

The person God created us to be.

Created in his image.

Restored through Christ.

Transformed into his likeness.

Fully human.

Fully alive.

And perhaps that is the great mystery hidden inside Jesus' seemingly impossible words:

Lose your life, and you will find it.

Maybe discipleship has always been the journey home.