The idea of a "successful life" is precisely our problem

Most professing Christians today have “prayed to receive Christ” because they felt a need and would like him to help them deal with it. Now, one cannot lay a satisfactory foundation for spiritual formation or growth in grace by approaching people in terms of “the trouble they are in.” I do not say that “felt needs” are to be disregarded, but in human affairs the “presenting problem”—the thing that needs to be fixed now—is rarely the real problem. One should of course be sympathetic with people who are lonely, guilt-ridden, and incapable of dealing with life, and so on, but these are not their problem. Their problem is that they have rejected God, for whatever reason, and have chosen to live life on their own. They have not surrendered their will to him. They do not want to do what God says to do, but what they think is best. And they are lost because of that, in the sense explained in an earlier chapter. They do not know what their real needs are and do not think of themselves as rebels and outlaws who must radically change because they are not acceptable to God. They do not think they need the grace of God for radical transformation of who they are, but that they just need a little help. They are good people. Or so it seems to them.

NOW, BECOMING A DISCIPLE or apprentice of Jesus cannot be negotiated on this basis. Rather, becoming a disciple is a matter of giving up your life as you have understood it to that point. Jesus made this starkly clear in Luke 14 and elsewhere. And without that “giving up,” you cannot be his disciple, because you will still think you are in charge and just in need of a little help from Jesus for your project of a successful life. But our idea of a “successful life” is precisely our problem.

This is because the “vessel” that emerges in the course of a particular outbreak of radical discipleship gradually overwhelms the heavenly “treasure” it initially served to convey. That is a primary satanic strategy in defeating the cause of Christ on earth. Then we have yet another tradition on exhibit in the museum of Christian history.

Usually that means an institution of some sort, perhaps a local church or a denomination, whose perpetuation and survival becomes the main concern of the people associated with it. Discipleship to Christ is either dropped altogether from the basic objectives or is redefined as devotion to the institution. Spiritual formation then in some cases is actually and explicitly understood as the process of conforming to the tradition. Being disciples and making disciples in the obvious sense of the New Testament is omitted from the local congregations and their higher groupings.  p. 143 SOURCE

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