In His Steps

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I home school - and I’m down to our last child.  Home schooling gives unique opportunities to those who learn there, and to those who facilitate there.  One of those opportunities is to read books that you would not have in your hands in the public school.

Daughter Crysta has just finished reading “In His Steps” by Charles M. Sheldon.  This book is over 100 years old and yet it still holds relevance to today’s church.  The book is a fictional outlay of an idea that Sheldon preached in his own church.  The interesting thing is that Sheldon, himself, was a Christian Socialist, and did not stress personal redemption from sin in Christ.  No, Sheldon - true to Socialism itself  - was all about the practicalities of living a moral life.  While I don’t ascribe to this form of teaching, I do love what this book says about being a disciple of Christ.  *Update:  Thanks to dmark for his comment below.  I was not suggesting with this post that socialism is about living a moral life.  As I commented to him, I appended information from another source “mid-thought”.   What I meant to say here was that Sheldon was a socialist.  His book was not about confronting sin, or redemption from Christ, but about applying Christian standards at a socialist level in order to even the playing field in a moral manner.  Reading the book, you can clearly see Sheldon’s socialist leanings.

For those who haven’t read this timeless classic; an out-of-work printer - living as a hobo - came into the church of one Pastor Henry Maxwell.  He challenged the people of the congregation to explain what their singing truly meant…. what did it mean when they sang about taking up the cross and following Him.  The hobo could not see how that was happening.  All he could see was a group of well dressed, finely fed “Christians”. 

The hobo dies, and the pastor is so pressed by the Holy Spirit that he comes to his congregation and asks for volunteers to live a life dedicated to living in a manner they personally deemed Jesus would live.  Each decision was to be prefaced with the question, “What would Jesus do?”

There were guidelines for this dedication that I will leave for you to read in the book.  My point of this blog is not to regurgitate the book to you.  However, there is something in the last chapter of the book I want to share with you.  It is powerful.  It is thought provoking.  It is something I would ask you to chew on - as I know I am chewing on it.

The passage follows the continuation below.  I hope you will take time to read it. 

Tonight has been quite blessed.  Barry and I spent time together watching Dennis DeYoung on PBS, and we are now listening to the video feed of Dr. Al Mohler speaking from Grace Community Church at the Shepherd’s Conference. 

Have a wonderful weekend in the Lord.

In Him,
Robin

Excerpt from Chapter 31, “In His Steps”, by Charles M. Sheldon
[Character Pastor Henry Maxwell, speaking to a congregation he is visiting in Chicago, IL]

“What would Jesus do? Is not that what the disciple ought to do? Is he not commanded to follow in His steps? How much is the Christianity of the age suffering for Him? Is it denying itself at the cost of ease, comfort, luxury, elegance of living? What does the age need more than personal sacrifice? Does the church do its duty in following Jesus when it gives a little money to establish missions or relieve extreme causes of want? Is it any sacrifice for a man who is worth ten million dollars simply to give ten thousand dollars for some benevolent work? Is he not giving something that cost him practically nothing so far as any personal suffering goes? Is it true that the Christian disciples today in most of our churches are living soft, easy, and selfish lives, very far from any sacrifice that can be called sacrifice? What would Jesus do?

It is their personal element that Christian discipleship needs to emphasize. ‘The gift without the giver is bare.’ The Christianity that attempts to suffer by proxy is not the Christianity of Christ. Each individual Christan businessman, citizen, needs to follow in His steps along the path of personal sacrifice to Him. There is not a different path today from that of Jesus’ own times. It is the same path. The call of this dying century and of the new one soon to be, is a call for a new discipleship, a new following of Jesus, more like the early, simple, apostolic Christianity, when the disciples left all and literally followed the Master. Nothing but a discipleship of this kind can face the destructive selfishness of the age with any hope of overcoming it. There is a great quantity of nominal Christianity today. There is need of more of the real kind. We need revival of the Christianity of Christ. We have, unconsciously, lazily, selfishly, formally grown into a discipleship that Jesus Himself would not acknowledge. He would say to many of us when we cry, ‘Lord, Lord.’ - ‘I never knew you!’ Are we ready to take up the cross? Is it possible for this church to sing with exact truth, ‘Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee?’ If we can sing that truly, then we may claim discipleship. But if our definition of being a Christian is simply to enjoy the privileges of worship, be generous at no expense to ourselves, have a good, easy time surrounded by pleasant friends and by comfortable things, live respectably, and at the same time avoid the world’s great stress of sin and trouble because it is too much pain to bear it - if this is our definition of Christianity, surely we are a long way from following the steps of Him who trod the way with groans and tears and sobs of anguish for the lost humanity; who sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, who cried out on the cross, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’

“Are we ready to make and live a new discipleship? Are we ready to reconsider our definition of a Christian? What is it to be a Christian? It is to imitate Jesus. It is to do as He would do. It is to walk in His steps.”

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