I've made no 'assertions about you personally (but I have come to conclusions concerning evangelicals in general), so please chill out.
There’s your biggest mistake. I have never claimed or owned the label of evangelical. I am part of the Baptist movement, not someone whose spiritual ancestors came out of a mainstream church in a rejection of liberalism (which is the current definition I hold of an evangelical).
Apparently, you are reacting to what you think I should be saying instead of what I am actually saying.
Go back and check, what I've done is ask questions.
Not quite. You have told me what I happen to think, that I am someone who thinks it is harder for a New Testament era person to come to faith than an Old Testament person, etc. But let’s leave that behind in favor of actually discussing the real issue.
You insist that every child of God will indeed forsake all and become a disciple. If they don't forsake all and become a disciple they're not a child of God. Is that correct?
In the big picture sense, yes. That is the call of Jesus and that’s the message we are commissioned to present. However, most people cannot immediately set into faith and it is in reality a process that may take days, months or years of breaking down the resistance to the call of Jesus. If God is drawing a person, they are under the spiritual pull of God and they will be received on the basis of what they can surrender at the time. Like human spiritual births, things don’t necessarily happen in an instant, but things are being pushed to their eventual resolution. During the birthing process, one’s life can still be lost if one decides to reject God and not move further into life. (The parable of the sower/soils and the warnings in Hebrews point in this direction.)
Becoming a disciple – at least in common American practice – is not a structured event and Jesus calls us into the obedience we can handle. At the very beginning, one comes into faith and discipleship to Christ by simply surrendering all one knows oneself to be, to all one knows Christ to be. Someone just coming into faith will often not know themselves as well as they thought, and they certainly do not know that much about Christ yet. But in the end, it is not about knowledge, but the attitude of a student/learner with the intent to follow Jesus wherever He leads.
I will tell you up front (and I'm NOT into giving personal testimony), I've NEVER considered myself to be a disciple, never felt worthy to be called His disciple, never felt any compelling unction from Him to forsake all and become His disciple…
You may be a victim of your church’s lack of teaching of the gospel. I could say the same from my church experience up to the age of 14. It was all about a transfer of sins in exchange for righteousness from Jesus that was pled by Jesus before an angry Father God who wanted to destroy us. Instead of the Father God beating up on us, he somehow exhausted his anger on Jesus (because he needed to hurt someone) and we got to go free, not to be bothered again until we died. At that point, we got to leave our bodies and this earth behind to go to Heaven. But that’s not the gospel. That’s a certain theory of atonement that has no necessary connection to the Kingdom of God and the call to discipleship that Jesus taught. What I heard as a child didn’t make a bit of sense to me. It seemed to be all about legal maneuvering, a God who didn’t want to accept me but was forced to do it because he had already beaten up on Jesus.
But when I was 14, I was out of town and heard a preacher teach about Jesus calling us to trust and follow Him. That made perfect sense to me and I responded to that gospel immediately. My church didn’t embrace a message that called people into an active relationship for several more years, but when that happened, many church members (and church leaders) came to faith in Jesus.
… yet there's nothing that has affected my life as much as loving Him, loving His word, and loving His people. I can't imagine life without that fellowship, it's the grandest thing that's ever happened to me. But I've a real problem with considering myself to be a disciple.
Sounds like you are already a disciple, even though you don’t know what to call it. It may have to do with what you think a disciple means. A disciple of Jesus is a student, an apprentice, of Jesus. One who learns from Him and lives his/her life in relation to His teachings and lifestyle.
Concerning disciples, what do you think of secret disciples? You know, like so many who believed secretly because of fear of the Jews.
While not the ideal situation (most situations are not ideal, at least at the beginning), it is absolutely a valid experience. It is part of the birthing and discipleship process. There are many secret (or simply, underground) disciples in parts of the world where being a Christian is a death sentence. Many of the early Christians met in secret and communicated quietly because of the circumstances.
