Business tycoons Mark Hanna and George Pullman had polar differences from the middle to late 19th century. Pullman refused to bargain when workers in his company town called a strike. Hanna derided that Darwinian dogma. He called any owner a fool who wouldn’t meet his employees “half-way.” Life History U.S., Vol. 8, 104-105. Hanna understood the working man far better than Pullman. As politics is often the art of meeting half-way on issues, capital and labor should struggle to find ways to profit owners and benefit workers.
That doesn’t work when humanity asks God’s baseline condition for discipleship. God doesn’t, and won’t, meet us half-way. In the first place, he’s already gone ALL THE WAY in providing forgiveness and discipleship. He created us in his image, with the capability of being like him. He endowed us with a conscience to monitor and correct us. He educated us in the behavior he accepts and those he abominates. He implemented the means of forgiveness: initially by animal sacrifice, ultimately and finally by Christ’s own. He warned us of judgment if we don’t accept his word and of unaccountable beneficences if we do. But when he instituted the basis of Christian discipleship, he didn’t meet us part-way or half-way, finding a happy medium he could accept and we would. No Half-Way Covenants with God—like the failed effort of second and third generation Puritans. The first, basic and non-negotiable condition of discipleship is SELF-DENIAL. Understand it’s the FIRST response demanded of every believer in Christ’s Godhood Matthew 16:24-28. We can’t just say, “I believe in Jesus,” and feel that’s enough. No. It’s barely the beginning, but it qualifies us to prove our faith is real by crucifying the self-will (ego) that otherwise disputes with God every issue we don’t accept as necessary! If Jesus commands baptism, self-denial agrees, and we’re baptized. If Jesus condemns homosexuality (which he did in Mark 7:20-23, and through his Holy–Spirit baptized apostle in I Corinthians 6:9-11), we condemn it, without judging the homosexual—since judgment of the person is God’s role. The same principle applies to all other Christian teaching. These are just two of the most debated issues among Christians today. Let us always remember: it’s never enough to appreciate Jesus, admire Jesus or be impressed by Jesus. Billions world-wide, of all religions, have and are. It’s another thing altogether to be convicted by Christ’s Deity and, therefore, in submission to the complete Authority that demands absolute compliance from us. We can accept or reject hm. But we have not had, do not have, or ever will have the right to limit, alter or compromise the condition of discipleship. It’s All The Way as Jesus offered it or NO WAY. No middle ground exists. Two warnings. First, let us not equate the quality of Christianity with the comfort it brings us. For it often treats us roughly, without apologies. Second, let us never so raptly listen to ego-pleasing music that tattoos on our mental roof that we don’t hear the crescendo of God’s wrath falling in on us.
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