Luke 9:23-27
Jesus' Teachings Are Difficult to Follow
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Former Priest and author Brennan Manning said that “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle...That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”...
Mahatma Gandhi said "I like your Christ, but not your Christianity."..."I believe in the teachings of Christ, but you on the other side of the world do not, I read the Bible faithfully and see little in Christendom that those who profess faith pretend to see."...
G. K. Chesterton wrote these words about the Christian faith and we as followers of Jesus, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting...It has been found difficult; and left untried.”...
There are man followers of Jesus who do not act they follow the teachings of Jesus...I believe that these above quotes are true...And I believe Chesterton tells us why these statements are true...In many circumstances Jesus is a very hard act to follow and do in one's daily lives as He did on earth...Jesus, in a certain way, said the above things in His talk to those who tried hard to follow Him but turned away...Jesus said this to those who had made the decision to follow Him, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me”...Jesus is telling us we cannot be selfish in any way and that self-denial is a part of being one of His followers...We are servants to others...And it is difficult want to be a servant, who wants to serve others...It is also difficult to speak Jesus' Words Daily to others...Sometimes we are ashamed of Him and His Teaching Words, as He let's us know here...
Jesus Teachings are True and what we should do...They are Tried and True, because He did and acted just as He said and taught...But we have problems following His Teachings...As followers of Jesus and trying our best to avoid the culture of fame, money and wealth, power, and pleasure we find a society not in favor of unselfishness...And we get caught up in the culture we live in...We believe in His Teachings but being completely unselfish and denying ourselves and Completely following the Light, is difficult...It is a sacrifice and is sometimes is a completely new way of thinking about how we make our daily decisions and how we live among others when we walk out of the door of our house everyday...So what happens is when we shut the door when we leave our house, we find many of Jesus' Teachings of complete unselfishness, a very great difficulty or we would do it...But being a servant to others, speaking His Word to others, and being Completely Unselfish is not just something we can turn on and off, it is a lifestyle change so His Teachings are found very difficult that they are left untried...