Thursday, July 10, 2014 “DISCIPLESHIP EQUALS DISCIPLINE” SCRIPTURE: Mark 8:34-38 A small girl was overheard in her bedroom one day, scolding her doll. She was vigorously shaking her, telling to be nice to her baby brother, repeating verbatim many of the things her mother had often told her. The father said, “Suzie, why do you scold your poor dolly for things you don’t do your-self?” Suzie said, “B…ecause it’s too hard to do it myself.” Most of us never outgrow this resistance to disciplining ourselves, do we? It’s always so much harder to make ourselves do something, to ride herd on our own emotions, our own short-comings, our own laziness. Yet true discipleship demands honest discipline. A disciple is one who follows, who “is trained or taught” in the ways of the one he follows. We who are Christians think of ourselves as being disciples of Jesus, but are we really? Do people who know us see a resemblance in our lives to that which Christ lived? Are we as selfless in our sensitivity to others and their spiritual needs? Discipleship, by its very word, keeps us from being first in our own lives. We are second to Christ, and servants to the world. Only in this way, will we find the real meaning and meat to living in this old world. Prayer: Lord, thou has promised that whoever loses his life for You, will find it. God, please show me the secret of this promise and grant me the fulfillment of a life which is important to Thee and needed by others. AMEN