Fickle Faith & True Discipleship

Jesus clarifies exactly what it is that separates spurious faith from true faith and fickle disciples from genuine disciples.
He said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples.” In short:
Perseverance is the mark of true faith & real disciples. A genuine believer remains in Jesus’ Word (logos), His teaching. Such a person obeys God’s Word, seeks
to understand it better, and submits his or her life to it precisely, even when other forces flatly oppose it.

Fickle Faith Retreats

John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed in Him, “If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed.”

The same theme of fickle faith is seen in John 2 & 6 where Jesus would not commit to them and some disciples turn away from Him after a discourse of which they disapprove.

John 2:24 But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men. John 6:66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.

Genuine faith perseveres: It holds tight to Jesus’ teaching, with some truly glorious consequences.  Such faith costs everything, but the freedom it brings far surpasses the prior life of pitiful slavery.

Jesus is never interested in multiplying numbers of converts if they are not genuine believers, and therefore He insists on requiring would-be disciples to count the cost.

Luke 9:62 And Jesus said unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back,  is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Luke 14:26 “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters,  and even his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. 33 So likewise, whosoever is not willing to give up everything for my sake cannot be My disciple.

True Disciples Stay Steady

John 8:31b, “If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed.”

Holding to Jesus’ teaching not only establishes the genuineness of faith, it also has its own authenticating  power. We come to know the truth, not simply by intellectual assessment, but also by moral commitment.

Because of truth’s intimate connection with Jesus, true disciples must not only hear His words: they must in some way be united in action with He who is the truth. Not only do true disciples believe, but they also live out that belief in their lives.

True Disciples Are Free

John 8:32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

This is the test: Is it true, does it accord with life? No one likes to be cheated, but still, we don’t always desire to be told the truth,  even when that is what is needed.

Truth is the nature of things as they really are. It is seeing through all the illusions, the dreams,  the wishful thinking, the facades and the unreal images, and getting down to the reality, that which really is.

What an attractive promise in the Scripture—to be able to recognize the lies one encounters daily, big and small.

When we can see things as they really are we can affirm what is good, true and permanent. When we come to see  the truth as we obey the word of Jesus, we will continue seeing life through His eyes, and we will begin  to look at everything differently, especially ourselves.

Basically this frees us from the hang-ups in life that sin  causes. To be hung up means you cannot move, you are bound and limited by something, unable to free yourself.  That we can be free is one of the most profound statements ever uttered by Jesus.

When we let ourselves do wrong, whether in attitude or in action, we become a slave of that wrong.  Gradually, we slip under its control. Later, when we want to break it, we find we are unable. That inability to free  ourselves from the sin proves that we are “slaves to sin.”

True Disciples Must First Admit They’re Slaves

John 8:33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How is it that you say we will be made free’?”

Jesus’ offer of freedom assumes that the Jews are currently slaves. The Jews sense of inherited privilege through Abraham is so strong they can neither acknowledge their own need nor recognize the divine Word Incarnate before them. Their very words demonstrated their slavery.

Jesus’ audience then, was just like the majority of mankind today—believing “we are alright the way we are, or that we can fix ourselves by our own actions.”

True disciples believe in the truth of God’s Word and they have a life pattern of obedience to His Word. Anything else is fickle faith, and that is something Jesus will not commit Himself to. Don’t settle for anything less than true discipleship.