Spanish explorer and treasure seeker Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico on April 22, 1519—Good Friday—in search of gold and to claim the land for God. Setting foot on the beach, Cortés established Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (Rich Village of the True Cross). Arriving in Mexico at the height of the Aztec kingdom, whose powerful king was Montezuma, Cortés devised a bold plan to fill Spanish coffers and convert the people to Catholicism. He would march his men into the country, conquer Tenochtitlan, Montezuma’s capital city, and take Montezuma dead or alive.
But this was no simple task. The distance from Villa Rica to Tenochtitlan was some two hundred cactus-filled and snake-infested miles. Cortés and his men would have to traverse unfamiliar ground, surrounded by hostile natives, with no supply line to provide food and water. Success was sketchy; failure was likely.
With the dangers of the unknown before them, Cortés did the unthinkable to keep his men from fleeing to the safety of Cuba. He ordered the master of his ships to sail nine of the twelve vessels onto the beach. And then, according to legend, Cortés gave the order to burn the ships.1 The expedition “had nothing to rely on,” Cortés later wrote, “apart from their own hands, and the assurance that they would conquer and win the land, or die in the attempt.”2
“Burn the ships” has become a metaphor for any decision where retreat is no longer an option. It is a point of no return. Although these kinds of decisions do not come along every day, when they do, they are life-changing. For example:
Answers to any of these questions can be life-altering. But your answer to the last question carries eternal consequences. And since your answer to this question is irrevocable on the other side of the grave—the ultimate point of no return—you want to get it right on this side of the grave.
A Culture in Chaos
Getting the burn-the-ships question about your commitment to God correct is becoming more of a challenge in our current culture. Globalization and multiculturalism have introduced us to all sorts of weird, wild, and wacky religious ideas. And secularism has been unrelenting in its assault on traditional biblical beliefs, drumming into the uninformed the idea that Christianity should be confined to one’s personal life and that Christians should cease trying to change public opinion or behavior.
In our postmodern and post-Christian culture, citizens no longer share common ideas of right and wrong based on God’s unchangeable Word. Our society is not only unaffected by God’s truth but it is completely unfamiliar with it. No wonder our culture is drowning in violence, immorality, and utter disregard for God. As Proverbs 29:18 warns, “Where there is no revelation [literally, a word from God], people cast off restraint” (NIV).
God placed His servant Elijah in the middle of a similar culture. The pagan influence of Ahab and Jezebel flourished in a nation that had arrogantly separated itself from its spiritual heritage. This is not to say that the people were not spiritual. But their spirituality can be better described as mysticism—a synchronistic blend of God worship and Baal worship—rather than biblical orthodoxy.
Just this week, a television reporter told me after an interview, “I’m a very spiritual person. I just don’t know anything about the Bible.” That was the Israelites. Their faith was rooted not in theological truth but in fear and fanaticism, which led them to the altar of Baal. Because the Israelites rejected what they knew to be true and embraced what they knew to be false, God punished them with three and a half years of drought and famine. The people of Israel were living illustrations of Jeremiah 2:19:
“Your wickedness will punish you;
your backsliding will rebuke you.
Consider then and realize
how evil and bitter it is for you
when you forsake the LORD your God
and have no awe of me,”
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (NIV)
God is not one to be trifled with. When it comes to making decisions about your relationship with Him, it is best to burn your ships and commit yourself completely to Him, just as Moses and Jesus commanded: “The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:4–5; Mark 12:29–30).
Elijah’s Burn-the-Ships Message—Follow God Completely
Jesus’s message in Mark 12:30 was the essence of Elijah’s message in 1 Kings 18:21. Standing on Mount Carmel, getting ready to do battle with the prophets of Baal, God’s prophet said to the people, “If the LORD is God, follow Him.”
The overarching issue in 1 Kings 18 is the question, “Who is the true God: the Lord or Baal?” Remember, the Israelites had not totally rejected God. Instead, they were trying to blend the worship of God with the worship of Baal. They wanted to experience the best of both religions rather than embrace one or the other completely.
The Israelites were like many Christians today who think of the world’s religions and philosophies as a spiritual buffet from which they can pick and choose. Accept what is most appealing; reject what is least appealing. Scratch beneath the surface of many Christians’ faith and you will find it to be a strange mixture: one part biblical Christianity, two parts mysticism, one part positive thinking—all sprinkled with a pinch of American patriotism.
Elijah declared that the Israelites could no longer straddle the fence. It was time for a burn-the-ships decision: “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).
Elijah challenged the Israelites to decide what they really believed and to commit themselves to it totally. He was saying to the people, “If the Lord is God, then obey all His commands and forsake Baal completely. But if you think Baal is God, then commit yourself to him and forget trying to follow the Lord.”
Like the Israelites, many Christians today are trying to straddle the fence between following God and following their idol of choice—not necessarily some figurine made of wood or metal, but people or objects we love more than we love God. Popular idols today include money, sex, career, and relationships. None of these is wrong in and of itself—until it becomes the major focus of your life.
Most Christians are not comfortable totally forsaking God and devoting all their attention toward their idol, so—like the Israelites—they try to worship both of their “gods.” The result? They never fully experience the benefit of either “god” because of a halfhearted commitment. If Elijah were speaking to us today, he would say, “If money, sex, or your career is what you really love, then give yourself completely to it and forget all this Jesus stuff. But if you believe God is who He says He is, then devote yourself completely to Him. It’s time to burn the ships.”
After enduring three and a half years of God’s judgment of drought, the people of Israel were still trying to follow Baal and God. So the Lord sent Elijah with a message: there would be a winner-takes-all showdown between God and Baal, to see who was really God. Before that climactic battle on Mount Carmel, however—which we will look at in detail in Secret #5—Elijah encountered Obadiah, Ahab, and the people of Israel. Each illustrates a different response to the burn-the-ships challenge of total commitment.
Elijah: Faithful and Fearless
Until you are completely committed, you can experience no true greatness or significance in life. Someone once said, “Set yourself on fire for God, and people will come from miles around to see you burn.”
Elijah was a man who burned white-hot for God. After being refined by the Lord at Cherith and Zarephath, Elijah faithfully and fearlessly followed Him.
Elijah Followed God Faithfully
Elijah followed God faithfully. He had a steely resolve to transform his culture rather than conform to his culture (Rom. 12:1–2). How did Elijah keep from being conformed to the world? He made obeying God—rather than pleasing people—the focus of his life.
Elijah was more concerned about what God thought than about what Ahab thought. That laserlike focus kept Elijah from becoming a conformer to culture and turned him into a transformer of culture.
Elijah also obeyed God fearlessly. Once Elijah was sure he had heard God’s voice, he moved forward without looking back. Elijah’s chariot did not have an “R” on the transmission—it moved in only one direction: forward! For Elijah that meant obedience to whatever call the Lord placed on him, whether to confront an evil king, to hide himself by a brook, or to live with a Gentile widow and her son. That fearless obedience would eventually lead Elijah to the summit of Mount Carmel and a showdown with the prophets of Baal.
For you, following God fearlessly may mean moving forward by:
When I think of someone who illustrates Elijah’s total commitment to faithfully and fearlessly follow God, I think of William Borden. His father made a fortune in the silver mines of Colorado, which young William would inherit one day. But a trip around the world—a high school graduation gift from his father—changed all that. On his journey William saw the magnificent sights of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but also the despair and brokenness of many people who lived around the world. God was at work in William’s heart. And a growing sense of calling became clear—he would sacrifice an affluent life as a businessman in Chicago for a plain life as a missionary in China. When a friend suggested that William was throwing his life away, he wrote in his Bible, “No reserves.”
William went on to study at Yale University, where he threw himself into evangelizing his fellow students and helping the poor and destitute in New Haven, Connecticut. It was at Yale where his missionary zeal focused on the Muslim Kansu people in China. Graduating from Yale, William was offered many lucrative jobs, including one in the family business. He turned them all down and wrote in his Bible, “No retreats.”
William enrolled at Princeton Seminary to further his theological studies. And with his eyes firmly fixed on the Kansu people, upon graduation he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped in Egypt to study Arabic. While in Egypt, William contracted cerebral meningitis. Within a month he was dead. He was twenty-five years old.
It is said that when William’s mother discovered his Bible after his death, she found the phrases he had written and dated in the back: “No reserves. No retreats.” But there was a third phrase. As he lay dying in an Egyptian hospital, Borden had written, “No regrets.”
William Borden had burned his ships—his wealth, his position, and his privilege—in favor of saying yes to Jesus’s call.
Elijah had done the same. He answered God’s call and never turned back. But not everyone in Israel was as committed to faithfully and fearlessly following God. Obadiah, King Ahab’s servant, was faithful to the Lord, but his commitment to God was compromised by fear.
Some people are truly committed to following God, but they want to keep their commitment solely between themselves and the Almighty. Why does anyone else need to know? They have deluded themselves into thinking that they can be more effective representatives for God in their school, workplace, or family if they operate as secret saints. That was the case with one of Elijah’s contemporaries, a man named Obadiah (not to be confused with the prophet of the same name who has his own book in the Old Testament).
As one of King Ahab’s servants, Obadiah was tasked with watching over the king’s household, which included Ahab’s palace, estates, and livestock (1 Kings 18:3). We might think of him like the chief usher of the White House. All housekeeping, cooking, serving, and groundskeeping staff answered to him.
When Elijah first encountered Obadiah, he was searching for water and food for Ahab’s livestock—not an easy task given the severe drought that had devastated the land. Baal—King Ahab’s deity of choice—was supposed to be the weather god, the one who should have brought rain to end the drought. Yet there had been no rain for over three years.
However, during this same period, Obadiah had secretly provided water, food, and protection for one hundred of God’s prophets—prophets that Queen Jezebel was trying to exterminate (v. 4). Obadiah’s name means “servant of Jehovah,” and he served God faithfully, but he did so fearfully—in secret.
Elijah had one simple request for Obadiah: “Go, say to your master, ‘Behold, Elijah is here’” (v. 8). But instead of running off and finding the king, who had been looking for Elijah for three and a half years, Obadiah shook in his sandals.
What have I done to deserve this? Ahab will kill me. As surely as your GOD lives, there isn’t a country or kingdom where my master hasn’t sent out search parties looking for you. . . . The minute I leave you the Spirit of GOD will whisk you away to who knows where. Then when I report to Ahab, you’ll have disappeared and Ahab will kill me. (1 Kings 18:9–12 Message)
Obadiah was afraid that if he reported to the king that he had found Elijah—public enemy number one—the prophet would disappear, and Obadiah would be left to endure the king’s wrath. But beyond that, Obadiah did not want to reveal to Ahab that he was a follower of God. Obadiah had found a comfortable compromise between his faith and his work. He lived a double life as a faithful follower of God (secretly) and a faithful servant of Ahab (publicly). Obadiah had not yet burned his ships and declared his commitment to God openly. And now that Elijah was forcing him to do so, Obadiah feared for his life.
Like Obadiah, it is easy to rationalize our compromises and try to remain a secret follower of God, often telling ourselves:
Obadiah’s fear had so diluted his faith that his life had lost its effectiveness. Whenever our faith “loses its saltiness,” as Jesus said (Matt. 5:13 NIV), we become useless in transforming the world around us.
Ahab: Faithless and Fearless
Because the capital city was the heart of Baal worship in Israel, “the famine was severe in Samaria” (1 Kings 18:2). It was so severe that Ahab feared he would lose his livestock. Looking for food and water for his royal herd, Ahab sent Obadiah in one direction while he went searching in the opposite direction. He said, “Perhaps we will find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, and not have to kill some of the cattle” (v. 5).
Just as a golfer bends down and plucks a blade of grass and lets it go to see which way the wind blows, so Ahab’s words reveal the direction of his heart. Yes, animals are important, but they are not more important than people. As tragic as the deaths of the nation’s livestock were, the human suffering was nearly unimaginable. Families slowly and painfully died of starvation and dehydration. Disease ran rampant throughout the nation. Children walked around with sunken eyes, sunken cheeks, and bloated bellies.
Israel’s situation at the time was like the severe famines we have seen hit modern-day Ethiopia or Somalia. And just like the despots and tyrants in some countries today, Ahab saw how much his people suffered . . . and did nothing. His concern was for his cattle, not his people.
What a contrast to David, who thought only of his people when the Lord punished the nation because of David’s lack of trust in God. Confessing his iniquity, David prayed, “Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep [the people], what have they done? Please let Your hand be against me and against my father’s house” (2 Sam. 24:17).
David’s prayer is the appropriate response of a sinful—but regenerate—leader. That was not Ahab. Ahab knew the drought and famine were the result of divine judgment for leading the people into idolatry. But he did not soften his heart and repent like David. Rather, he hardened his heart toward God and toward God’s people, caring only for his livestock. It is true: when the wicked rule, the people suffer. And Ahab’s people suffered greatly.
As the drought deepened, Ahab’s hatred of God and His prophets intensified. Instead of repenting of the sin of idolatry, Ahab multiplied his wickedness by allowing Jezebel to commission bounty hunters to murder God’s prophets (1 Kings 18:4). The days were desperate and dangerous. And it was in these dark times when “the word of the LORD came to Elijah . . . saying, ‘Go, show yourself to Ahab’” (v. 1).
It is the mark of an unrepentant and proud sinner to blame someone else for the fact that he or she is suffering divine punishment. And that is exactly what Ahab was and what he did. When he met Elijah, he cursed God’s prophet: “Is this you, you troubler of Israel?” (v. 17).
The Hebrew word translated “troubler” means “to bring calamity.” Sometimes the word is used to refer to a snake.3 When Ahab called Elijah a “troubler,” it was another way of saying, “Is this you, you sorry snake in the grass?”
You can understand why Ahab reacted this way. After all, it was Elijah who, three and a half years earlier, had pronounced that no rain would fall and no dew would come. Creeks had dried up. Cisterns were empty. The rotting carcasses of animals littered the land. Flies filled the air. And the cemeteries were overflowing with dead bodies. No wonder Ahab greeted Elijah with poisonous words: “You viper that poisons everything! You are the cause of all this trouble—all this drought, disease, and death.”
It took courage for Elijah to confront Ahab. It took even more courage to shift the blame back to Ahab, where it squarely belonged. “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and you have followed the Baals” (1 Kings 18:18).
Ahab—and all of the Israelites—needed a reminder that the God of heaven is the supreme God. And Elijah was just the man to deliver the message. Elijah commanded Ahab to gather the people, the 450 prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of Asherah and meet him on top of Mount Carmel for a demonstration of divine power—a test to see whether the Lord or Baal was the true God.
The People: Faithless and Fearful
Because God controls His foes as well as His friends, Ahab complied with Elijah’s command to gather the people for the showdown in Samaria. Once everyone had gathered at Mount Carmel, Elijah challenged the Israelites: “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).
The Hebrew word translated “hesitate” means to “hop” or “limp.” Literally, Elijah said, “How long will you hop between two forks [in the road]?” Some translate the word as “totter,” like a drunkard who weaves to one side of the street and then to the other side.
The people of Israel had not rejected God and accepted Baal completely. Rather, they embraced the false notion that they could worship both God and Baal. They had adopted a both/and mind-set. In other words, they thought they could sacrifice their children to Baal on Friday and sacrifice a lamb to Jehovah on Saturday!
Honestly, Baal worship offered some attractive alternatives to God worship. First, it carried official and royal approval—signed and sealed by the king and queen. Power is persuasive, especially power wielded at the point of the sword. So if you want to get along, go along.
Second, Baal worship appealed to felt needs. Baal was the god who brought rain, which produced grain, oil, and wine. He supposedly healed the sick and raised the dead. And he was the god of human and animal fertility. Of course, Baal never actually accomplished any of those things—and the three-and-a-half-year drought proved that.
However, Baal worship appealed to something more powerful than felt needs—it satisfied carnal desires. As one scholar notes, Baal allowed worshipers to worship with all of their glands. Married or not, Baal followers would engage with a temple prostitute who helped them worship body and soul.4
Hopping between God and Baal, the people had their feet planted solidly in midair. They were double-minded, which is dangerous, and double-hearted, which is disastrous. As Jesus bluntly noted, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matt. 12:30). So Elijah challenged the people to burn their ships of double-mindedness and double-heartedness and make an either/or decision: either the Lord is God or Baal is God. Period!
This was not a new and strange message. Ever since the beginning of time, God has made it clear that He alone is God and that His people must obey His commands completely. Hundreds of years earlier, Joshua issued this challenge to the Israelites, whom he had led into the Promised Land:
Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River [Euphrates] and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Josh. 24:14–15)
How did the people response to Elijah’s burn-the-ships message? With deafening silence! “The people did not answer him a word” (1 Kings 18:21). It’s easy to remain apathetic to God’s call for a full-time commitment. And the people chose easy.
One of my concerns for future generations of Christians is that, like the Israelites, they will become apathetic when it comes to their dedication to God—not fully committed to anything, including their relationship with Jesus, but always dabbling in a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Put another way, I’m concerned the next generation will make Christianity something less than it should be by embracing cultural values that are antithetical to Christianity.
Many modern-day believers are like the people during Elijah’s day, trying to walk down both sides of the street at the same time. With one foot in the world and one foot in the church, carnal Christians are more concerned with self-gratification than self-denial. They do not struggle with sin; they surrender to sin. But Jesus has a better way. He calls us to burn our ships—to “take up [our] cross and follow [Him]” (Matt. 16:24).
Jesus’s Burn-the-Ships Message—Follow Me Completely
Elijah’s burn-the-ships message was repeated in the New Testament by John the Baptist, a prophet who came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). John the Baptist served as the forerunner and proclaimer of Jesus’s ministry (Mal. 4:5–6; Matt. 11:14; 17:10–13). John’s bold message was exactly Elijah’s message: burn your ships and follow God.
Jesus picked up John’s (and Elijah’s) message and personalized it: “Follow Me.” This is the call to discipleship—to see Jesus as more important than anything or anyone else in life; to deny yourself and crucify your sinful habits; to go anywhere and do anything at any time Jesus commands. This is the call to a radical commitment to Christ, where He is the beginning and end of all your hopes and dreams.
This challenge became real for me when I was a teenager. I had played the accordion since I was five (please, no accordion jokes!). Through the years, I earned quite a bit of money playing for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and local Oktoberfest celebrations where the accordion is king.
At the same time, I also volunteered at a small church on weekends. One Sunday evening, the pastor shared with the congregation his vision for establishing a bus ministry to bring inner-city kids to church. Obviously, to have a bus ministry you have to have a bus. The church had none. And the church had no money to buy one. So the pastor announced that a special offering would be collected the following Sunday to purchase a bus.
This created a quandary for me. I believed in the pastor’s vision—to bring inner-city kids to the church so they could hear the gospel of Jesus—but what could I do? Yes, I had gained a tidy sum from playing my accordion, but it would not be nearly enough to buy a bus. And besides, I had worked hard for that money. I had other plans for it.
As I was praying about what I should do, the Lord grabbed me by the ear and said, “Go all in—burn your ships.” So I did. When Sunday came around, I placed a check in the offering plate for the complete balance of my checking account—$500. And I never regretted it. Today, as I look back on that experience, I realize that $500 is not that much money, but at that time in my life it represented everything I had. Far more valuable than the money I gave that day, however, was learning how to listen to—and obey—the voice of God.
That is the kind of commitment Christ calls us to: to burn our ships and follow Him completely. But exactly what does that entail? What does it really mean to follow Jesus? Well, Jesus answers that question and tells us that following Him—being a true disciple of His—involves four aspects of our lives.
Get Your Priorities Straight
From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus called His disciples to follow Him (Mark 1:17; John 1:43). As His ministry progressed and His fame increased, others began to express a desire to follow Jesus. After Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, a scribe—an expert in the Jewish law—said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go” (Matt. 8:19).
Jesus’s reply was remarkable because He neither encouraged nor discouraged the scribe. Rather, Jesus challenged the man to count the cost of completely following Him. He said to the scribe, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (v. 20).
This did not mean that Jesus was penniless and homeless. Rather, Jesus was letting the scribe know that the call and demands of His ministry forced Him to live as a nomad. His ministry kept Him on the move, and if the scribe wanted to be Jesus’s disciple, then he, too, would be moving about from place to place.
Most people do not want to live out of a suitcase. Instead, we are taught from a young age that a central priority in life ought to be finding a stable and well-paying job and working toward the American dream of home ownership. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that—and fortunately, most of us can follow Jesus without living as a vagabond.
But sometimes following Jesus requires us to pull up stakes and move to a new town across the state or to another state. And for a few of us, following Jesus requires us to move to a new country. Being committed to following Jesus meant I had to move to Eastland, Texas, and Bill Borden had to move to China. It is simply a matter of determining what is most important in life—following Jesus wherever He may lead or planting yourself in one location that appears to be safe and secure.
Another man approached Jesus with a commitment to discipleship, but this man wanted to bury his father first (Matt. 8:21). He asked Jesus to wait for him before leaving on His next ministry assignment. Jesus’s response to the man was to grab his gear and go—“Follow Me”—and let those who are spiritually dead (who have no interest in following Jesus) bury those who are physically dead (v. 22).
Jesus was not being insensitive to the man’s commitment to his family or to honor his father. But when other commitments conflict with our commitment to Christ, true disciples must always follow the Lord. When our commitments do conflict, more times than not, the struggle is not between something evil and something good but between something good and something better.
Again, it is a matter of getting our priorities straight. We do not necessarily have to become gypsies or forsake our families. But if the choice comes down to following Jesus or putting our security and families first, then our allegiance to Jesus and His will must take priority. This is why William Borden is such a great example of one who burned his ships. His priority was Jesus first—all others second.
Get Rid of Your Prejudices
Jesus had a notorious reputation—at least among the cultural elites of His day. The Pharisees often criticized Him for keeping company with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 9:11). Little has changed since the first century. Tax collectors were just as despised then as IRS agents are today. But in Jesus’s day, Jewish tax collectors were considered traitors because they worked for the Roman government. Tax collectors were also often corrupt, charging more taxes than required and pocketing the difference.
From the Pharisees’ perspective, Jesus was guilty by association. Their underlying accusation against Jesus was this: How could He, if He claimed to be a good Jew who followed the law, befriend turncoats and thieves?
Jesus’s response to the Pharisees’ criticism was to do the unthinkable—to call a social pariah to become one of His own disciples! “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ And [Matthew] got up and followed [Jesus]” (v. 9).
Jesus was making an important point about what it means to follow Him completely: “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34 KJV). Like God, who saw the heart of David, Jesus “sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
We are the ones who test someone’s fitness to follow Jesus by their race, their education, their social status, their gender, and even their politics. For instance, we just know that someone who is politically liberal could never follow Jesus wholeheartedly. So convinced are we that Christ must be a political conservative that we conclude that all Christians are conservatives and all conservatives are Christians. I know that is a bit of an overstatement, but many of my conservative friends cannot believe that a liberal could really love Jesus. May I introduce you to Kirsten Powers?
Powers is an antiabortion evangelical liberal pundit for CNN—previously for Fox News. In an article she wrote for Christianity Today, she said, “If there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion—especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt.” But through conversations with and the prayers of her then-boyfriend and others, Powers went to hear Tim Keller preach at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. After eight months of listening to Keller preach the gospel, she began to feel her commitment to the one thing she was “completely secure” about beginning to crack.
“My whole world was imploding,” she wrote. “How was I going to tell my family or friends about what had happened? Nobody would understand. I didn’t understand. (It says a lot about the family in which I grew up that one of my most pressing concerns was that Christians would try to turn me into a Republican.)” Then one day, after attending a Bible study, her life changed forever. She said, “The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy. . . . The Hound of Heaven had pursued me and caught me—whether I liked it or not.”5
Paul made it clear in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Our commitment to Christ is determined by our faith in and obedience to Christ, not our politics, our intellect, or our skin color. People from every tribe, tongue, and tone will populate heaven. So, if in the life to come we are going to live with people who are different from us, shouldn’t we start trying to get along with them in this life? This requires us to lay aside our prejudices and view our fellow disciples as Christ views them—as brothers and sisters in the faith. Jesus declared, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
Get Your Pleasures Aligned
We often define “pleasures” in terms of living in a palatial home, eating fine meals, and driving a luxurious car. In other words, we think pleasures can be purchased—which is probably why the rich young ruler had such a hard time accepting Jesus’s challenge to sell everything he owned, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus (Matt. 19:21). The desire to control our lives goes back to humanity’s original sin in the Garden of Eden, when Eve “saw that the [forbidden] tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). So she picked a piece of fruit and ate it. Today we call her sin self-centeredness—the lust to satisfy our selfish desires without any concern for the well-being of others or the commands of God.
Claiming ultimate control over our lives is the very definition of selfishness. But that attitude is antithetical to following Christ. Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me [as a disciple], he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24).
Discipleship requires self-denial. Some people erroneously equate self-denial with pushing aside an extra piece of dessert or giving up a favorite television program to read their Bible. If only it were that easy! Denying ourselves means aligning our desires with God’s desires. And whenever there is a conflict between what we want and what God wants, God wins every time. As Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).
Jesus tells us that, if we want to be burn-the-ships kind of disciples, we must submit to His power over our lives. We must surrender our desire to control our lives to God’s control. As someone has said, the essence of discipleship is not a makeover of your life but a takeover of your life. Like Jesus, we must say to God, “Not as I will, but as You will.”
Get a Handle on Your Possessions
Placing your desire to control your own life under God’s will for your life requires a radical readjustment in your thinking. But it is necessary if you are going to live an extraordinary life for God. However, don’t be surprised if, after you commit yourself to self-denial, Jesus asks you to demonstrate that commitment in a tangible way.
When a wealthy young man approached Jesus with a question about eternal life, Jesus tested his level of commitment to God by telling him to “keep the commandments,” specifically, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and fifth commands (19:17–19). The fact that the young man claimed to have kept all of them revealed his pride. And the fact that the young man still questioned what was necessary for salvation revealed his despair in not finding it through living a good life. So Jesus answered, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (v. 21).
Now, don’t misunderstand Jesus here. Jesus is not teaching that salvation comes through selling your possessions and giving everything away. If that were the case, then Jesus would be teaching that salvation comes through good works, which would defeat the whole purpose of His death and resurrection and our need to place faith in Christ. Jesus’s conversation with this wealthy man revealed who or what was actually in control of the young man’s life. This man had allowed gold to become his God. If this man was truly willing to follow Jesus, then he must let go of all rivals to Jesus’s authority in his life.
Does Jesus require us to get rid of our possessions? Not necessarily. There is nothing wrong with having money and possessing the things money can buy. Abraham, Job, David, Lydia, Joseph of Arimathea, and others in the Bible were wealthy individuals who led God-honoring lives. The Bible never terms money as “evil” but does single out “the love of money” as a root cause of “all sorts of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).
We live in a materialistic society where our creature comforts rival our commitment to Christ. The temptation to make and horde money exerts a powerful pull on almost all of us. Therefore, we must be careful to get a handle on our possessions, seeing them simply as gifts from God to enjoy responsibly. However, the moment your house is no longer a pile of wood and brick, or a fine meal is no longer fuel for your body, or your bank account is no longer digital numbers in a computer, then you have to question whether your possessions control you or whether you control your possessions.
The test of my burn-the-ships commitment to Christ comes when He asks me to open my wallet or to walk away from a lucrative business deal. It was a struggle for me to give up that $500 for a bus ministry, but I am glad I did. It could not have been easy for Bill Borden to turn his back on the family fortune to minister to Muslims in China. And though he did not complete his mission, he had “no regrets.”
Burning the ships to follow Jesus completely is not for the faint of heart. It requires courage. For Elijah, burning the ships meant having the courage to confront Ahab and challenge the Israelites to choose God or Baal. For you, burning the ships means deciding once and for all who is in control of your life: you or God.
A Declaration of Discipleship
A Zimbabwean pastor knew what it meant to burn his ships and follow Jesus to the very end. Just before his martyrdom, this young man wrote his declaration of discipleship:
I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit’s power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made; I am a disciple of His! I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed; my present makes sense; my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small plannings, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, world talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. . . .
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won’t give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go until He comes, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problems recognizing me. My banner will be clear.6
That’s the kind of burn-the-ships commitment God requires from anyone who wants to experience an extraordinary life.