The call to discipleship!

     When we think of a call to discipleship, we don't necessarily get it right as the definition given by Jesus.  As a father I can "call" to my kids to get out of the road when a car is coming.  I can call my family to dinner.  I can call my sister or others.  I can call for a taxi and the list goes on.  It's not the call to discipleship.  You can think of the call to discipleship as a "calling" given by God but you wouldn't be correct there either.  Mostly because the Christian uses the "calling" to determine what a Christian has been specifically called to do like pastor, evangelist, and etc.  The call that comes to your memory is "recall" and most people like to only recall those memories of positive and good nature.  Then there are those who are called to rise to the occasion and to do what is right.  Stopping to help a stranded motorist, helping someone up who has fallen, and those sorts of things.  Some of us freak when we are called out on the carpet (so to speak) and need to be corrected.  The call to discipleship is none of these.
     I clearly remember the moment when Jesus came into my life.  It was an event that would establish a "first love" relationship with God.  My life was changed and I was called out of the world and separated from the world forever.  Not necessarily the temptations of the world, but I no longer belonged here.  I was in the world but not of the world to quote Paul.  There was a focus that was intense, prolonged and wonderful.  Not much else mattered to me.  Jesus took so many of the issues that were my life and removed them miraculously freeing up my being to be his being.  The tenure of those feeling would run the gamut over the years but the sense of belonging to only God remained the source of my life.  The focus turned from my selfish desires to His will.  Instead of being dictated to by the world I found myself wanting to submit myself to his love and follow his teachings.  My life was totally turned around and my old group of friends didn't like it.  Neither did my family.  Part of being on the "called to discipleship" is knowing that those in the world (some are Christians) don't like who you have become.  The call to discipleship then becomes a total being focus and that means that God is the total focus.
     The core word in discipleship is discipline and not disciple.  It's part of the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg.  Without discipline we cannot be disciples.  Self discipline doesn't work.  The kind of discipline I am referring to is  abandonment of self and immersion in Christ.  Paul says of his discipline that "it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me."  Can we say that?  Has our discipline come to that point?  Do we, as Christians, really believe that we can have one foot in heaven and the other foot in the world?  If we do, then we don't have Christ as our call to discipleship.  The discipline offered by the Holy Spirit leads to our discipleship.  When we are in that space, we are being subjugated willingly to the God of everything.  There is nothing more important than doing the will of God.  It's all a choice.  It's your choice, do what God wants.  Be a disciple of Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to manifest himself in every aspect of your life.  Let the Father breathe through you and watch the world you live in be transformed.  It's always your choice.