32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

Discipleship is about loyalty. If one is to become like his Master, then one must publicly identify with his Master. As He continues to train the twelve, Jesus sternly zeroes in on the crux of the matter. This is no business for Sunday-only Christians. There were some like Nicodemus (John 3:1, 19:39) and Joseph of Aramethea (John 19:38), who were “secret” adherents to the teachings of Jesus, but their fear of others eclipsed their open identification with the Lord. It is true that such believers can accomplish some things for the Lord, as did they did in giving the body of our Lord a proper burial. However, Jesus was recruiting for a higher calling.

In Jesus’ day and in the immediately following years of the early church, being identified with Christ and His revolutionary teachings invariably brought persecution. There was a real cost in being a disciple of Christ (Jesus alerts them to this in the next few verses). Presently in North America and many parts of the world, particularly Christianized countries, publicly identifying oneself as a Christian is not hazardous to one’s health. That is because the term Christian often conveys a culturally acceptable or institutionalized form of Christianity that is far removed from real discipleship. There is no risk, no test of loyalty in calling oneself a Christian in such cultures. In our western culture, in fact, the word Christian often carries an unflattering political connotation!

In other areas of the world disciples of Christ are persecuted and killed because of their identification with Christ. They take these words of Jesus seriously. What does this mean for the rest of us? How can we distinguish our loyalty to Christ? The answer is that we are called by Jesus to be identified with HIM not with a movement or a religion or a philosophy of life. Though the term Christian has been used for 2000 years, it was only used biblically three times (Acts 11:26, 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16). It meant “Christ-like” or “little-Christ,” and was originally used as an epithet, a short, quick way of identifying those people who had become followers of Christ. Eventually it became institutionalized like many things in the checkered history of the church. Today that meaning needs to be recovered. Some today have adopted the self-reference, “I am a follower of Jesus Christ.” This is more to the point.

Lord, I want to live my life so that others will see by my actions and know by my words that I am Your follower, a true “Christ-like” one.