THE CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLESHIP

If any man come to Me, and hate not ... he cannot be My
disciple.

Luke 14:26,27,33

If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus
Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship
means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus
Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and
devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a
cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple
is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call
ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth
has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has
imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and
reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord
Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in
our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying
Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality,
and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is stamped by 'moral spontaneous originality,'
consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus
Christ was, viz., that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always
consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life
of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men
pour them selves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their
prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.