Our local police recently ran a major campaign to recruit new officers. The Step Forward campaign seemed to be all over our media, highlighting the benefits of becoming a police officer.
I’d have to admit that I’ve thought about working with the police, but never all that seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I admire the work that the force carries out and I admire those people who step up to the task of policing. I simply don’t think that it’s the job for me.
There are many aspects of policing I think I’d enjoy. Helping people, serving my community, making life safer for others would all be things I’d embrace about such a position, but there are other things I don’t think I could do. I’m not sure I could handle arriving at an accident scene and seeing twisted, lifeless bodies, or having to turn up on someone’s doorstep to tell them that someone they love has died.
I don’t know how well I would cope with being surrounded by the darker side of life much of the time, or how well I’d do knowing that a reasonable percentage of the community I was serving would hate me, simply because I represented authority.
Our police often put their own health and life at risk for the benefit of the wider community. I admire that but I’m not sure it’s something I could do day after day.
I’ve looked at the benefits and the difficulties of working with the police and on weighing things up I’ve decided it’s not something I could do.
Counting the Cost
There are many benefits to faith in Jesus Christ but there is also a cost.
Luke 14:25-33
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
That’s pretty serious. While most Bible scholars would agree that we’re not being asked to literally hate our family, the strong message is that God should be first in our thinking. Our first allegiance mustn’t be to our biological family but to Jesus Christ. That’s a big expectation.
While the gift of salvation is free, the cost of following Jesus is something we need to consider. We can’t just take all the benefits and ignore what following Christ could mean for us.
If faith in Jesus is only a ticket to heaven and a promise of a ‘nice’ life here on earth, we’ve missed the point. If we don’t make Jesus Lord of our lives and see our day to day life radically changed we need to examine what’s really going on. If we keep living the same way that we used to live, if our hearts aren’t grieved at the suffering of those around us enought to make us act on their behalf, or if we’re more concerned about having a joyful, happy life than we are about those around us who are facing a Christless eterntity, there’s something seriously wrong.
If we’re not putting aside our earthly ambitions and goals, as good as they may be within themselves, to throw ourselves totally at the feet of Jesus to follow the direction he wants our life to go, we’ve missed the mark.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about a life that’s only full of suffering and saddness. Life with Jesus has many, many moments of joy and there is a remarkable contentedness even during difficult days but my fear is that the Christian faith is simply being ‘sold’ as happiness on steroids without the need to conform to the likeness of Christ. I don’t need a motivational message to become the best me I can become or to always live in victory. That’s a shallow counterfeit of Christianity.
The passage above from Luke 14 talks about taking up our cross. These days that’s just a phrase used for minor suffering or inconvenience. When Jesus spoke those words, those listening knew exactly what it meant. Death.
Check out this short video of Mark Driscoll who says it so much better than I can.
Are you counting the cost? Is Jesus shaping your life?
Friday, March 4th, 2011, 10:05 am | 
Faith | 
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