Following Jesus ... A Journey of Love and Sacrifice

Following Jesus … A Journey of Love and Sacrifices

Hi, I'm Tony Kostas – and welcome to the fourth episode of my Led Into Love podcast!

Right now, my heart's full with the privilege that God's given me to share with you the things that are in my heart – because I know that they're the things that are in God's heart. 

After many years of being in Christian ministry and leadership. Knowing what it is to gather people to God. Knowing what it is to express things that God shows me – to teach from the Bible, to give advice and counsel, to pray for people, to see lives transformed – all of the things that many other people who've done the things that I've done over the years in ministry and leadership can talk about. 

The thrilling thing is that here I am. You can't see me. Many of you don't know me. And yet I have the privilege of sharing with you the reality of God. Not based on just the experiences I've had over the years or the things that I've learnt – but what He is to me now, as a result of the way that He's led me, and the things that He's taken me through. 

The incredible privilege of knowing Him as I know Him now. The reality of a Living God – who so wants relationship with you, that it blows religion, and a lot of the religious concepts of God right out of the water. 

So often God has been presented in all sorts of ways that don't represent Him at all. God certainly never had a religious system in mind! 

When Jesus talked about His church, He was talking about the body, the entity which would be made up of all those people who would believe in Him on God's terms, and belong to one another because they belonged to Him. When Jesus said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against that Church, He wasn't talking about a Church that would be on the defensive. Because, you know, gates are not offensive. Gates are defensive! 

He was talking about the gates of Hell being under threat by the Church of Jesus Christ. Not only under threat …but not able to withstand the force of the Church! 

He talked of a Body of believers that would blow open the gates of Hell and free Hell's captives! Now, that is the Church that Jesus came to… create, if you like. I'm not sure I like the word ‘create’ … but you know what I mean. In fact, it was the Holy Spirit that brought the Church into being. 

Jesus gathered … not many people together. Of the many thousands of people that benefited from His miracles – the things He did for them in His three-and-a-half years of ministry – there weren't many of them! 

As I mentioned in my previous podcast, on that day of Pentecost – when the Holy Spirit came on the Church, there were just 120 people who were filled with His spirit. But that was the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

The Church … the gathering … the Ecclesia … the Body, that was going to be the expression of Him in this world. That's a spiritual Body – but it's a spiritual Body that is em-bodied in human beings like you and me. 

You are meant to be a part of that body, and to be a part of that body is everything. 

When you look at Jesus and you look at Him making an invitation to people to follow him …and what did He say? “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, let him take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever tries to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses it for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it.” 

Now what kind of an invitation is that? Who, wanting to get a lot of followers, would put it in words like that? But Jesus did. Because He knew that to follow Him, to belong to Him, would cost you everything! Why? Because it cost Him everything. It cost His Father everything to make it possible for you to belong to Him! 

And God knows that He, and the gift of Eternal Life that He gives, is worth more than you could possibly afford to pay – other than to abandon your life to Him. 

Now that's not ‘church’ as we often know it. And that's not Christianity as we often know it. And that's why the devil – for so many, many centuries, by and large … I know there are exceptions, but overall … the devil, who Jesus referred to as ‘the prince of this world’, has had so much of a free hand in this world! 

So often God has not been able to do what He has wanted to do because He has not had people who have been yielded to Him. 

Oh, he's had lots of people who've wanted to do great things for Him – people who want to do heroic things – people who want to have success in all kinds of things that are called ‘Christian Ministry’. And He sure isn't short, in some parts of this world, of people who love to build huge churches that even have a special name – called mega-churches – so that they can have a big successful church … a ministry … a program. Call it what you like, but it's not the Church of Jesus Christ …unless it's following Jesus on His terms. 

And I say that to you, not as … yeah, sure. I was going to say ‘not as a criticism’. Yes, it is a criticism – but it's a criticism of man's ways of taking what is so beautifully of God and making of it something that gratifies that egocentric human being, that we all are without God. That's why Jesus said, if you're going to belong to Him, forget yourself. 

Not only forget yourself, but deny yourself! 

He said, you cannot live for Him and live for yourself. Now, I'm sure there's a lot of Christians – a lot of people who are listening to this, who bemoan the fact that we live in such a ‘me-centred’ world. 

The world I grew up in – even if someone was self-centred and selfish – it was something they didn't boast about, because it was considered a very anti-social way of being. It wasn't acceptable. People had to at least look like they cared about other people. 

In today's society, you are encouraged to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Really, all you need to be is someone who so desires God – who so values and sees God for who he is – that you want to abandon your life, yourself to Him – and have no life, no future, no ambition, no destiny …other than what comes through belonging to Him! Not for your sake …but for His. 

Not because you want to be deprived, but because you would rather put your life in His hands, than hold onto your life and deprive Him of what you uniquely can be to Him – and ultimately lose the thing that you are thinking is so important, which is you. 

Now, that's real Christianity. That's the reality of following Jesus. That's the price of following Jesus. 

And so many Christians, who read accounts of people who were like this in the Bible – not only in Jesus’ time, but before Jesus’ time – people who were abandoned to God, people who totally gave themselves to God and totally lived for God and responded to God. I mentioned people like Abraham in my previous podcast. 

People who love to read books of people, since the days of Jesus … who have been so-called ‘heroes of the Faith’ … who have done great things for God, and been missionaries, and been preachers, and so on … idolize these people, buy their biographies, talk about them, yet see those people as standout exceptions. Instead of what is normally meant to be someone who belongs to God. 

You know, even the word ‘saint’ that some older traditional churches use, as defining someone in a special way … ‘saint’ simply means someone separated to God. 

And if you know these things, if you know your Bible, you know that Paul wrote to people in his epistles – in his letters – about ‘the saints’ in this place, ‘the saints’ in that place. Really, everyone who's a believer in Jesus must be a saint! 

Now, don't put it the other way around. Everyone who claims they believe in Jesus isn't, by definition, a saint. But they should be – because to belong to Jesus means you have separated yourself to be His. That is the most beautiful thing! 

When Jesus spoke about this life that we are called to live, when He prayed for His disciples at the last Supper, to his Father, He said:  “This is life eternal, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, His son, whom He has sent.” 

That is what Eternal Life is! That's the Eternal Life that is God's gift because of Jesus … and that's the gift of God that makes it worth you dumping anything and everything to belong to Him! 

It's not just life after death. It's not just living forever. It's entering into the life, the living relationship with God that you were created for, as a human being, that God wanted you to always have. What Adam had and lost. What Jesus died so that you will have. 

And that is the life that you can enter into. And that is the way that God wants to be glorified in you. You don't even have to figure that out. You don't have to figure out what that means for God to be glorified in you. If you want to glorify God with your life, you will glorify God with your life …if you're prepared to belong to Him on His terms. 

Now, this is thrilling. It's exciting. I get excited about it. But look – it's the real thing. And if you want it, and if you want to live like that, don't do it lightly. Because Jesus said, “count the cost”. Don't start something and leave it halfway. 

Now, knowing Him as I do, and having experienced Him over all these years, I can't understand why anyone would want to live in any other way. But the fact is, there are so few people at any given time in history who do. Often, because they are not even told that this is what it is to belong to Jesus. And if they are told, so many – like the many people who, at one time they're following Jesus until He said some things that they didn't like… and they abandoned following Him, because it's not palatable. 

The most foolish thing you can do is to have the opportunity to give your whole being – to abandon yourself – to make yourself available – to be a saint… someone separated to God – and to say ‘No!’ 

And the wisest thing – the smartest thing – you can possibly do is, when you're faced with an opportunity like that, say ‘Yes … whatever it costs, I'm in!  I want to know God like that. I want to belong to God like that. 

If you feel like that, then please stick around, because there's more to come on the led into Love podcast. Bye for now!