AM I A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST?
Elder D. P. Bridgman, deceased
My precious brother and sister, will you please be serious with me as I ask myself this great and all-important question? Will you please ask yourself this question with all seriousness? Am I a disciple of Christ? It is indeed a great question. It is a certain fact that you and I are either His disciples or we are not. I am persuaded to feel that we cannot be a half disciple. We do not find anywhere in the lids of the Bible that we are partly a disciples, any more than we can find where one has part life but not a complete life. If we do not have life, then we just simply do not have life and therefore have no part with God. If we are not a disciple of Christ we might be a disciple of Mammon.
I feel like we can find out whether we are a disciple of Christ or not; for I find that my precious Savior left on record the information whereby we might know whether we are or are not His disciples. He plainly tells us what we must do in order to be His disciples, and what if we do we cannot be His disciple. This is as big a "not" as you ever heard in all your life. It is so big that it positively cannot be untied. It cannot be altered or changed as long as the world stands, for what He, Christ, says or does is said or done forever. There is no need of thinking, "Well I think He is not as hard now as He was then,” or “I do not think He meant it just this way or that." It does not matter in the least what you and I think about it, dear friend. That has positively nothing to do with it at all. The facts remain just as sure today as they were the day when the great words fell from the lips of the blessed Savior. They ring out through the ages. They are just as true today as they were the very moment they fell from His precious lips.
I want to examine myself very, very closely and see if I am His disciple. Suppose I find when I make an examination that I am not His disciple and that I have been fooling myself for a long time, as well as my good brethren and sisters. Oh, how awful that is! What can I do? I think if I see I am not His disciple, I will begin from this good hour to beg of God, with all the power that is in me. I will begin as David did in the fortieth Psalm, to beg God, to wait upon the Lord. I will begin as job did when he could not find the Lord. I will begin as His little children have down through all the ages to call upon Him to instruct me in the ways of God. Of course first of all I must demand that Satan get behind me and quit leading me into destruction. I will try God and see if His promises are true. I will try Him as He taught His children in the long ago to do, knowing that He is God and changes not. If He will be so wonderfully good, so graciously kind to me, as to forgive me for my hypocritical pretending to be a disciple of His all the days in the past, I will try with all my soul, mind, and body, if I am not now a disciple.
I am almost afraid to look and see what He says. I do so much dislike to know that I have not been what I have pretended to be all these years; but in order to really know, I must look and see. I will open my Bible and turn to Luke 14, and begin to read. I find where He gave the great supper and sent out and bade the Jews to come in. They refused, offering various excuses. In verse 24, I find that He tells them they shall not taste of His supper. That means they are simply cut off as a nation and cannot taste of these great things. I find in verse 23, where He sent out after your and me – the Gentiles; and in verse 25 here great multitudes went and He turned unto them and told them what it took to be His disciples.
He is God and changes not! I know by this I am required today to do just what He required of them in that day. Verse 26: "If any man come to be, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Verse 27: "And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."
He made it very plain in the beginning, and it is the same today. Let me see: Have I been hating all the above named? What is meant by the word hate here? I know from His teachings and from my very own feelings He does not mean for me to dislike or feel in the least bit ill toward any of the above named. Neither do I feel that He would be in the least pleased if I did not love my own life that He so graciously gave me, but He does something very important! I am persuaded that He simply means for me to love Him more than all these, to consider Him above all these, to desire to please Him before pleasing any of these, to let Him come first in my life regardless of what any others might say or think or do. He has asked me, has demanded me, to do so. To fail to do so is simply to dishonor Him. Have I treated Him in any such way? If so, I am not His disciple. If I have not done all this and gone on into His kingdom, I am most certainly not His disciple. Even though I might have done all this and gone into His kingdom and there taken my seat, thinking that all is well, that I am now through, that if I go to church when all is well, when I have nothing else that suits me better, and give my preacher a dollar or two once a month when I have my membership at that church, then I might think I am His disciple. Brother, if this is your honest opinion, will you please let me tell you, you have the wrong opinion. You are wrong. "Brother Bridgman, do you mean to tell me that even though I do go to church once a month and do help my pastor a little each month, I am not His disciple?" Yes, according to my interpretation of what my Lord tells me is required to be disciple that is not sufficient! He says further in verse 27: "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."
Do you suppose when meeting time is over, He would go on about His own business? He says in another place, in speaking to His mother, "Must I not be about my Father’s business?" do you think He was about His Father’s business one or two days a month and the rest of the time about His own business? You know that is not true, but He was continually about His Father’s business. You may say in reply, "I just cannot do that." To say such is to flatly deny that Christ knew what He was talking about. Do you actually feel that you know more than Christ knew then; that Christ was simply mistaken? Well, He most certainly was not. You can go after Him even while you are plowing in the field, working in the factory or store, in the kitchen cooking dinner, when you are doing these things with a prayerful heart, and He communes with you and you with Him. Sometimes you have a feeling to donate something to someone, but you feel you just cannot afford to do it. In this way, you allow Satan to prove to you that one has not worked like you, and he threw his money away when de hid have some, that he lived immorally, would not help you when you were ill or when you were in a real tight and needed his help, and a thousand other things. You stopped there communing with Christ and began to commune with Satan; changed your course and turned right around and began to be a disciple of Satan.
Some days later you thought again of Christ and tried to beg Him for His mercy. Because He just failed to come at your first attempt to beg Him, you say, “There is nothing to it. I am just not His. I have been fooled all the time anyway. It costs money to do all this, and takes up much of my time. Many of the folks come to my house to eat all the best food and expect me to take off time with them,” and a thousand other things old Satan tells you. I will tell you something too; If you do not watch out, you will find you are a disciple of Satan and not of Christ!
Just remember you must first deny all the ones that are so near and dear to you, who do not want to follow Christ. Next, you must bear your cross. Next, you must follow and continue in the footsteps of Him. Then, and then only, will He consider you as Hid disciple.
My good friends, will you please be so kind as to tell me if I am wrong and the Bible does not teach this? If it does, let us begin at this good hour to follow Him. As often as Satan stops us and tries to deceive us, tell him to get behind us. I am sure we will be happier, feel better, have fewer complaints, more rejoicing, and will then bear the fruits of the Spirit as taught by Paul to the Galatian brethren – love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, temperance, meekness - and this will be worth many times the whole world to us.
Written solely because of the interest in my poor heart for the dear saints of God.
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