Tim Oakes

Made to make you think

Friday, October 07, 2005

Learning to Lose

In November I’m talking at chapel. The title is “learning to lose” or something like that; it’s about Jesus saying if you want to find your life you must lose it . I’d appreciate you theological thinkings based around this. Will it cost me everything to follow Jesus? Thoughts please

posted by Tim @ 10/07/2005  

7 Comments:

  • At 9:03 pm, October 07, 2005, Blogger Liz Hinds said…

    Which chapel is that?

     

  • At 7:28 am, October 08, 2005, Blogger Tim said…

    Linden Elizabeth. Get with the programme!

     

  • At 2:50 pm, October 08, 2005, Blogger Liz Hinds said…

    Well, you should know all about learning to lose having lost your Spider Solitaire crown.

     

  • At 4:44 pm, October 10, 2005, Blogger Jon said…

    Justyn, does it have any impact on those around us, or just how we relate to God? Nice picture by the way.

     

  • At 2:27 pm, October 11, 2005, Blogger Tim said…

    Lovely points- keep them coming please

     

  • At 4:52 pm, October 11, 2005, Blogger Tim Lovell said…

    I think that a great book to look at if you want to think about losing stuff, is 'The Cost of discipleship' by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's a really great book, because it firstly talks about the cheap grace that the church nowadays seems to preach:

    "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

    Whereas Bonhoeffer says that what is needed is an understanding of costly grace. I wont be able to say it any better, so I'll quote him again:

    "Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
    Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . .
    . . . Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "my yoke is easy and my burden light"."

    I really believe that the call that Christ gave us is to leave it all. For eg: JC calls disciples & they leave everything behind. It seemed central to JC's teaching that you had to leave it all behind. In fact, the church today seems to accept people, then let them leave it all behind. But JC again and again turns people away from following him because they couldn't leave it all (rich young ruler etc)! Imagine a church doing that today!

    Sorry for the long post.

     

  • At 7:35 am, October 12, 2005, Blogger Tim said…

    yeah I am known as timmy tails but I'm not so sure why. I can't remember meeting you but I feel like I know you coz of the amount Ben goes on about you. I'm not going to assume I know which 'crush' you are talking about (there's about three a week) but from experience i'm usually much more than a 'crush' for the ladies!

     

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