Luke 14:25-33... Would Jesus make it as a church planter?

"Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple... In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:25-27; 33

In ministry, we are constantly trying to draw crowds and we measure our success by numbers far too often. When people come in through the doors we want to wow them with our service in hopes that Jesus may look attractive to them and that they may give Him a shot. Don't misunderstand me, I don't think it is a bad thing to draw a crowd, its what we do with the Gospel that concerns me sometimes. We water down the Gospel to the point that one can follow Jesus on their own terms and everyone's ok with it.

I don't think Jesus would belong at most of our churches! He had no problem drawing the crowd, but keeping the crowd was another story. I have been reading the book "Radical" by David Platt, and he touches on this. Jesus was clear about the Gospel... "You want to follow me... then you must give up everything." I can hear the leadership boards already... "What are you doing? You are scaring people! If you want to have any shot at keeping the masses then you need to stop all this crazy talk." Its funny how we want to feel like we are following Jesus and are on good terms with God, but not actually surrender everything to Jesus and follow Him.

So how about you... Will you be one of the masses? Low commitment and comfortable with a made up version of Jesus, or high commitment and a risky adventure with the real Jesus. Lets not water down the Gospel... or Jesus for that matter! Lets abandon it all for the sake of the Son of God!

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