Discipleship is fulfilled in love

Being a Christian and following the Lord is a serious decision. Becoming a Christian entails conscious choice to become one, and not just be following a cultural designations. It demands serious discernment and foresight.

The Gospel asks us to renounce 3 things if they come in our way towards genuine discipleship.

• Relationships

• Possessions.

• Our own life.

Jesus wants us to follow him for the right reasons. In today’s Gospel, Jesus strips discipleship of its false glamour, the whims and caprices we attach to our calling, and defines the requirements for genuine discipleship and that is to share in his destiny -to take up the cross and self-denial.

To carry our cross means:

• To damit that suffering is part our lives.

• To accept that our suffering is known to us alone, and other people will never know our pain once it's there.

• That before we die, we experince many other deaths.

• To accept that we cannot have the best of things.

• To accept that we cannot get what we pray for.

• To accept that only God can make all things possible.

In our first reading, Paul asks the Romans to transcend first wave discipleship. While obeying the commandments of God makes us followers and disciples of the Lord, Genuine and total discipleship demands more than that. Genuine and total discipleship is not about following the law and avoiding to do harm on others. DO not commit adultery, do not kill, do not covet.

Discipleship is not about do nots.

IT IS ABOUT LOVE. It is about doing something we love. Love fulfills the whole law.

Discipleship is fulfilled in love.