SIM International Director Malcolm McGregor

If there is one story that captures what it means to disciple people the way Jesus did, it is found in Luke 9:18-27. Jesus is praying with his disciples when he asks, “Who do people say I am?” The disciples reply with the latest gossip on the street, and then he asks them directly, “Who do you say I am?” Peter’s response is one of the highlights of the New Testament: “You are the Messiah sent from God.” The disciples had been with Jesus for some time, and yet he did not reveal his true identity—he wanted them to discover this amazing truth for themselves.

Jesus goes on immediately to set criteria for his followers, and in the process gives us some of his hardest teaching: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.”

Today’s value system is all about self-indulgence as a means to self-fulfilment. “Life is about me.” “I am the centre of the universe.” “Life is about what I want to achieve, so get out of my way.” These are messages we receive constantly in our celebrity-dominated global culture. But in this Luke 9 call, Jesus demands a counter-cultural attitude of self-denial. If the Church is going to grow stronger, then it needs to be full of people who do not live for themselves.

The cross challenges us because it is a symbol of death and shame. It is one of the cruelest and most painful ways to die. Jesus asks us to go beyond self-denial to self-sacrifice—to live each day as if it were our last. If the Church is going to be effective then it needs to be full of sacrificial people.

Finally, what did it mean for Jesus’ disciples to follow him? It meant leaving behind the safety of their homes, their possessions, even their families, and commencing a life of pilgrimage and counter-cultural engagement that could lead them, as it did for Jesus, to persecution and death.

To let go of the things that give us a sense of security and strength—and to hold to the hope that it is God working in us “to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13)—is, in a sense, self-(un)reliance. If the Church is going to be a vibrant witness to the upside-down values of God’s kingdom, then it needs people with a keen and constant awareness of their dependence on him.

In a world “stripped of grace,” as Miroslav Volf describes it, discipleship is never easy. These attitudes not only go against the grain of culture, they go against every natural tendency we have as well.

I am grateful for the special people in SIM who live out these attitudes every day in vulnerable places around the world. In the midst of discipling, we are being discipled. In the midst of growing others up in the faith, God is helping us to grow.