Following Jesus: Something I Do Alone, Something We Do Together

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

We use this blog each week to think out loud about what it means to follow Jesus – how we can preach the Gospel to ourselves, how we can grow in our trust in Jesus and in our Gospel focus, how we can live out the Gospel. But there’s a sense in which it is presumptuous of me to think I can speak for anyone else’s discipleship. No one else’s spiritual journey will be like mine because following Jesus is such a personal, individual thing.

Following Jesus is a solitary pursuit, something I must do on my own.

Although I came in through the same door as every other believer – through putting my faith in Christ – my own path of discipleship will differ from everyone else’s. I have different life circumstances and different gifts; I have my own unique calling.

And my walk with Jesus is a matter of my own personal responsibility. I cannot expect anyone else to love Jesus for me or obey Jesus for me. In one sense, my walk with Jesus is about Jesus and me. I am personally accountable to Jesus for my obedience to Him.

This is why we talk so much about the personal spiritual disciplines. I have said this before: if my only engagement with God and His Word is for an hour on Sunday morning, I’m on a starvation diet. If I want my faith to be vigorous and robust, I need to regularly spend time with God in prayer and in His Word. No one else can do these things for me.

But following Jesus is also a corporate pursuit, something we do together.

My walk with Jesus isn’t just about me. In fact, if I think of my discipleship in strictly personal terms, I set myself up for disaster. Christian history is replete with sordid tales of Christians doing horrific things when they thought they were obeying Christ’s call on their lives.

I know my own wicked heart. I know how easy it is to lie to myself and believe my own lies. I know that if it were entirely up to me, if the only voice I ever listened to were my own, mine could be another one of those stories that brings dishonor on the name of Christ.

Among the several means the Spirit uses to work His sanctifying grace in my life, one of the most important means is other believers, my spiritual siblings who, like me, have been adopted into the family of God, fellow pilgrims on the same spiritual journey.

We need our spiritual siblings when we are discouraged. I remember a friend telling of a time in his life when he was so low and so discouraged, he couldn’t even pray. He recounted that other believers took it upon themselves to pray for him – not just to intercede for him but to pray in his place. When he was unable even to pray for himself, his friends stood in the gap for him.

But it’s not just when we are low that we need one another. We also need our spiritual siblings when we are wrong. I remember a time when I was burned out and cynical, and my attitude was contaminating my co-workers. A friend had the courage and the grace to privately call me out about my attitude. You can imagine how that conversation went. I surely wasn’t in the mood to hear what he had to say. After our “come to Jesus” moment, I was mad at him for about two days before I realized how right he was and saw how toxic my attitude had been. It was only after all the bitterness had drained out of my heart that I was finally grateful for his intervention.

We all need “iron sharpening iron” friendships like that. God has supplied that kind of friendship in the body of Christ. Why? Because we need one another when we are wrong.

Not either-or

Someone once observed that we are all like the drunk who tried to mount a horse. First he fell off one side, then he got back up and fell off the other. So it is with our spiritual life: there are two ways of being foolish and reckless about all this.

It is reckless and foolhardy to neglect my inner life with God. If my faith is something I think about only on Sundays, it is not really faith but performance art.

But it is also reckless and foolhardy for me to cut myself off from my spiritual siblings, fellow travelers on the road to holiness. We need one another, and we need to be involved with one another.

We will thrive spiritually when we take responsibility for our own spiritual growth but also engage with other believers to help them and be helped by them.

Persevere.
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship