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

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 unique own calling.

My walk with Jesus is a matter of my own personal responsibility. I cannot expect anyone else to listen to Jesus for me or pray for me or obey Jesus for me. In one sense, my walk with Jesus is really just 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, in the pulpit, more than once: 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.

Following Jesus is a corporate pursuit, something we do together.

But in another sense, 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.

Here’s why: I know my own wicked heart. I know how easy it is to lie to myself and believe my own lies.

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 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.

But even though I am responsible for how I respond to Jesus and his Lordship, I am glad to say that it’s not finally up to me how my story will play out. God’s Spirit, in His sanctifying grace, has assumed responsibility for finishing the task He first started in me as a five year old boy, when I first put my faith in Christ. As the old hymn has it, “His grace has brought me safe thus far. And grace will lead me home.”

And 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 low. During my ten-day Covid quarantine, I’ve noticed that my outlook has become more negative, more pessimistic. This is not surprising, and I know not to take these negative thoughts seriously. But I have experienced discouragement, even though, because mine was a breakthrough infection, my symptoms have been very mild.

In fact, one of the high costs we are paying in this pandemic is the hit we’ve taken in our mental health. The combination of anxiety, illness, and isolation has created a breeding ground where negative, self-defeating thoughts can take root.

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 to pray even for himself, his friends stood in the gap for him.

But it’s not just when we are low that we need on 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 how toxic my attitude had been. It was only after all my bitterness had drained out of my heart that I was finally grateful for his intervention.

Think of the last time you talked to a friend about a conflict you were having with someone else. You probably did what all of us would do: you painted the conflict in terms that would put you in the best possible light and show that the other party was completely in the wrong. And you fully expected your friend to simply take your side and join you in condemning your opponent.

But if your friend possessed godly wisdom, and if your friend loved you, you might have heard some hard questions about your own role in the conflict, what you might have contributed to the difficulty.

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 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. We need to walk with Jesus alone, and we need to walk with him together with one another.

It is foolish and reckless 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 foolish and reckless 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
Discipleship Pastor