Where Does Courage Come From?

The summer after my fourth grade year I went to church camp at Central Oak Heights, which by the way this past month celebrated a 100th Anniversary. Back then it was our main Methodist church camp. The week of camp I attended had well over 200 kids, just for elementary camp. And I was just another kid in a crowd. I would not have been noticed by anyone unless they were looking to give an award for the shyest, most introverted kid there at camp. Then I might have won.

For example, when we got to cabins that first Sunday afternoon, my buddy, Mike, whom we’ll call, Mr. Extrovert, wanted to immediately go visit the girl’s cabins. I suggested we just sit on our bunks and watch the bugs call around the floor. That’s how I felt most of the week, from what I remember. But something else happened that week. I know this because during the closing program I found myself standing up in front of the whole camp - the 200 plus kids, plus the adult staff, plus all the parents that had come for the program – and telling them what Jesus had come to mean to me.

How did that happen?

Last weekend was good in many ways. One way was Marlin Snider got us thinking about how God uses significant people in our lives to introduce us to a relationship with Him in Jesus. God calls us to trust, to fall into his arms, and to step out in courageous faith to be witnesses and make disciples of Jesus. Marlin shared this passage from the Gospel of Mark and I have been thinking about this passage every day. Let’s think about it together.

Jesus is telling the disciples and a larger crowd people that He would have to suffer greatly and then he would be executed. This was his message for the day.

“He said all this quite openly.” Mark 8.32

Too openly for Peter. Peter takes Jesus aside and says, whoa Jesus, what you doing? All this talk about suffering and sacrifice and death, it’s not really going over so well with the crowd. It’s too depressing. Can’t be a little more upbeat?

Jesus response to Peter was, “You’re the devil.”

Then Jesus, instead of shutting up, calls out like this:

IF ANYONE WANTS TO BECOME MY FOLLOWER, DENY YOURSELF, TAKE UP YOUR CROSS AND FOLLOW ME. IF YOU TRY TO SAVE YOUR LIFE YOU WILL LOSE IT. IF HOWEVER YOU LOSE YOUR LIFE FOR MY SAKE AND THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL YOU WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Jesus didn’t need a megaphone or a sound system. His Word was its own megaphone, the Holy Spirit the sound system to broadcast to minds and hearts. Do you understand how powerful a punch was packed into this declaration?

Deny yourself and take up your cross. I’ve heard people reference this phrase in their own lives but usually in ways that have little to do with what Jesus meant. A man might complain that he works long hours at his job but is grossly underpaid while some other fat cats are living the easy live. He thinks he is getting the short end of life, he’s being cheated, but somehow in his cranky, bitter, complaining way, that should count as a credit to his self-denial, something for which he should be rewarded one day. Or a woman complains about her grown children who never treat her right, who never do what she thinks they should do, who have never properly thanked her for all she has sacrificed. She repeats this litany of complaint over and over in her mind and to whomever will stand to listen to it. She surmises, with a sigh of self-pity, “I guess this is just my cross to bear.”

That’s not what Jesus meant. These kind of folks have turned ordinary trials into things to draw more attention to themselves. Jesus wants us truly to turn our backs on the old self and its constant need for attention and validation. To take up your cross is to give your life away to God and others with increasingly less thought for your rights and your expectations.

“We need to take people off of men and put them onto Christ.” George Fox


If you try to save your life you lose it.

Taking up the cross and following Jesus involves practicing discipline. Dallas Willard says, “the real making of a person comes from disciplines that only they can choose and impose on themselves.” You freely choose to follow Jesus because, though the disciplines will not at first come naturally or easily to you, it has become clear to you on some level that the Jesus Way of life is superior to what you or others have going on.

You realize that you are a poor savior. I am a poor savior. I can’t even save money very well. How will I save my soul? How will I save my life? What do I gain in living life in this world if I lose myself in the process?

Our favorite TV shows these days are Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. Our opinions vary on which is better. Both purport to show the average coach potato how to survive in the extreme wilderness for days with nothing but a pocketknife and a string. There are skills they anyone can learn – how to build a shelter, how to make a fire, how to find things to eat – that will improve your chances of survival. One of our personal favorites is the episode when Bear Grylls, the host of Man vs. Wild, eats Reindeer “raisins”, if you know what I mean.

Bear Grylls knows how to live in the wild, but many of you may not know that he has learned some other practices and skills for life. He has taken and now promotes a course on Christian belief and discipleship called the Alpha Course, which originated in Grylls’ homeland of Great Britain. The man who has navigated dangerous rapids and faced hungry grizzlies says this about Alpha and following the way of Jesus:

“When you get a chance to be saved, you gotta grab it.”

I’m afraid we sometimes look at reading the Bible, praying, and other spiritual disciplines as something unreal, unconnected to real life. So if we’re going to do it at all, it’s something that we have to portion out in little pieces as “something that’s going to be unpleasant” and unprofitable, instead of what it is, something that could save our lives.

“We know that all things work together for the good for those who love God and called according to His purpose.” Romans 8.28

“Before you cash those checks,” Dallas Willard says, “notice they are made out to disciples of Jesus.”

It is possible to learn over time, with much discipline and practice, how to live like Jesus would live if He were you. It is possible, moment by moment to ask, “What, Father, do you desire to be done this minute?” This is what Jesus did. When we follow Jesus the Kingdom of God becomes more real to us and the ways of the world are exposed for what they are – a dog and pony show.

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words. . .of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

How does the unbelieving believe? How does someone who knows about God come to know God? You decide to follow. You lay down control and let Jesus take over. You practice the presence of God in your life continually. Live your life in the Kingdom of God now – my real life, the one I am actually living. Not just in church or on religious occasions.

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his kind of righteousness.”

How does a timid soul become a disciple who tells others? First step is know Jesus and love Jesus. You can’t give to others what you do not have.

What to do now? Convert the world? No. Convert the church? No. Your first move “as you go” is – convert me.

Convert me. When that happens Jesus will make us witnesses in ways we may not even see coming. I don’t know it happens, it just does. Witnesses, to wit, is to cause others to know. We don’t manipulate, we don’t force. But in a winsome way the light of Jesus shines powerfully through us. Courage comes from walking with Him.

We truly are the light of the world, a city set on a hill. May it come true here and now what Tertullian wrote of those first century Christians –

Men cry out that the state is besieged; the Christians are in the fields, in the ports, in the islands. . .we are but of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you – cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camps, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum; we leave you your temples only. Our numbers increase the more you destroy us. The blood of the martyrs is their seed.