Call to Discipleship

 "If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us?  What decisions and partings will it demand?  To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer.  Only Jesus Christ, Who bids us follow Him, knows the journey's end.  But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Introduction, The Cost of Discipleship

Discipleship means joy. Not happiness, or feeling good. It means that we see how wretched we were. We rejoice that God picks us up, cleanses us, and sets our feet on the path we should walk. We are no longer without direction. We may stray from the road, but He is faithful to redirect our steps.  This is His 'boundless mercy' indeed.


Discipleship means partings. We must separate from things that distract us, like 'sucker shoots' on a vine sap nutrients from the branches that need them. We must seek to have those thing pruned, even good things.

Relationships of various sorts, books or films, working out,  music, work, the Internet, and many other good things can at times be sucker shoots. Even things like 'small group' or church events can be a distraction from the LORD. We must part ways from such things, without sequestering ourselves from the world.

If we answer the call to Discipleship, where will it lead us?
Only where our Guide knows we need to go.

 

~ Johanna