{"id":6835,"date":"2019-06-06T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ben-sternke-live.prev17.rmkr.net\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:54:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:57","slug":"passion-enough-discipleship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/passion-enough-discipleship\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Passion Isn’t Enough For Discipleship"},"content":{"rendered":"

I grew up going to Bible camp every summer. I loved it! Through the exciting worship, dialed-in teaching, team exercises and fun, my passion for Jesus was renewed each summer.<\/p>\n

The last evening of Bible camp I was always encouraged to go back home and tell all my friends about Jesus. Since I was so pumped up about Jesus<\/em>\u00a0at that point, I was expecting\u00a0\u00a0to\u00a0see some amazing things!<\/p>\n

But it seemed that in the span of the four-hour drive home, all the passion I’d stored up all week had oozed out like the air in a leaky balloon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I got home in the early evening. I made myself a snack, played a video game, had dinner with my family,\u00a0and the next morning it seemed that life had gone back to normal. All that passion to talk to my friends about Jesus was completely gone.<\/p>\n

Bible camp seemed like a dream that I could barely remember. I wondered how it was possible to have felt so differently less than 24 hours ago.<\/p>\n

Passion alone wasn’t enough to sustain my discipleship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"worshiphands\"<\/p>\n

Listening to the predominant narrative of modern evangelical Christianity, you could get the impression that\u00a0passion\u00a0<\/em>is what we need to live a life of discipleship to Jesus.<\/p>\n

If we can just become\u00a0enthusiastic<\/em> enough, if we can just get more\u00a0hyped\u00a0<\/em>about Jesus,\u00a0we will have the fuel we need to fulfill the Great Commission and live the way of Jesus. It’s a “Bible camp” mentality that continues into adulthood for most of us.<\/p>\n

When passion falls short<\/h1>\n

Jesus, however,\u00a0tells a different story in the Gospel of Mark<\/a>\u00a0when he is approaching the cross.\u00a0During his last supper with his disciples, he tells them they will all fall away, but none of them believe it.<\/p>\n

Peter passionately<\/em>\u00a0declares, “Even if all fall away, I will not!” Jesus responds will a shocking\u00a0warning: “Tonight you will disown me three times.”<\/p>\n

And Peter simply cannot believe it<\/strong>. How could THAT<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0ever happen if\u00a0he feels this passionately about it? “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you!” he proclaims.<\/p>\n

Jesus takes his disciples from dinner out to their favorite camping spot, the olive groves\u00a0of\u00a0Gethsemane, where he finds it necessary to pray. He takes Peter, James and John with him and tells them to simply sit with him while he prays.<\/p>\n

Instead they fall asleep.<\/strong> Jesus comes back and wakes up the slumbering disciples, and gives them another warning, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But instead of watching and praying, they fall asleep again, right up until Jesus is betrayed. The whole situation takes them off guard and, just as Jesus predicted, they all fall away, and Peter disowns Jesus three times.<\/p>\n

Passion wasn’t enough for Peter to follow Jesus. Passion wasn’t enough for the disciples to stay awake and pray with Jesus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Passion wasn’t enough for them to remain firmly loyal to Jesus in the face of adversity and threat. Passion wasn’t enough for them to keep their promises of fidelity to Jesus. Passion just isn’t enough for discipleship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s why Jesus could predict they would all fall away. He wasn’t using divine omniscience when he prophesied the disciples’ betrayal, he could just see<\/em> that they were relying on passion to sustain their discipleship, and he knew it wouldn’t be enough for them when temptation came.<\/p>\n

Training that sustains us<\/h1>\n

That’s why he urged them to watch and pray…\u00a0so that<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0you will not fall into temptation! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In other words, the passion is there, but you need more than passion<\/em>. You need\u00a0training<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit like the difference between my relationship\u00a0with basketball and soccer. I like watching<\/strong> and playing<\/strong> both sports. I am\u00a0passionate<\/em> about\u00a0both soccer and basketball as sports.<\/p>\n

But the difference in my skill<\/strong> in these sports is massive.\u00a0I can hold my own on a basketball court, but I’m not very good at soccer at all.<\/p>\n

Why? Because while I’m equally passionate about both sports, I have\u00a0trained<\/em>\u00a0as a basketball player since I was in elementary school, but\u00a0I’ve never actually trained<\/em> as a soccer player.\u00a0<\/strong>I’ve only played pickup soccer games, which I love doing, but mostly I am a liability to my team.<\/p>\n

I’m a liability to any soccer team I’m on, because my spirit is willing (I love playing soccer!), but my flesh is weak (I’m not very good at it!).<\/p>\n

Disciples need training<\/h1>\n

In the same way, passion was not enough for the disciples to remain faithful in trial. They desperately wanted to come through for Jesus, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

They genuinely thought that they could, too. They assumed their passion would carry them, but it wasn’t enough. They needed\u00a0training.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They needed to learn to watch and pray, so that when temptation comes they will have the capability to actually\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0what they so desperately want to do.<\/p>\n

We need the same thing, if we’re going to follow Jesus as disciples. For example, that’s what spiritual disciplines are all about,\u00a0training<\/em>\u00a0us so that we can be poised and ready for the trials and temptations that come our way as we join Jesus in his work.<\/p>\n

Disciplines for training disciples<\/h1>\n

I have to remind myself of this every once in awhile. My passion is not enough to sustain me, I need to submit to a regimen of\u00a0training<\/em>\u00a0so that my flesh isn’t weak on the day of temptation.<\/p>\n

This is why I “say my prayers” every morning and evening (I use the Daily Offices from the\u00a0Book of Common Prayer<\/a>). It’s why we gather for worship on Sundays to hear the gospel and receive the Eucharist. It’s why I go for walks without my phone. It’s why I participate in a discipleship group where I can submit my life to others who care for me, so we can discern how God is at work in our midst.<\/p>\n

As we engage in these simple exercises, these\u00a0predictable patterns, we find that God’s grace inhabits those spaces and he begins to transform us.<\/p>\n

We become spiritually “strong” not by trying really hard, but by\u00a0indirect effort<\/em>. That’s how we\u00a0train<\/em>\u00a0as disciples… doing little, seemingly insignificant things that allow us to do the things we cannot do by direct effort.<\/p>\n

How about you?<\/h1>\n

I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below on one of these questions:<\/p>\n