The Seesaw of Discipleship
How Self-Denial is the Fulcrum of Discovering The Purpose of Your Life
A catechism ( /ˈkætəˌkɪzəm/; from Ancient Greek: κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in Christian religious teaching of children and adult converts. Catechisms are doctrinal manuals – often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorized.
One of the most famous catechisms was produced in 1647, and its popularly known as the Westminster Catechism which starts out by asking perhaps the most profound question anyone could ask: “What is the chief end of man?” In other words, what is the purpose of life? The verbal response, which was based on a culmination of many passages throughout the entire Biblical corpus, was boiled down to this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was he responded in a dual fashion in Matthew 22:37-39 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Furthermore, in Galatians 4:9 St. Paul used an interesting dualistic turn of phrase, he distinguished between “knowing God” and “being known by God”. My thesis in this short piece is to argue that to fulfill your primary purpose in life (1) to enjoy God, is to simultaneously love God which is the same thing to “know God” and to fulfill your secondary purpose in life, that is (2) to glorify God which is the same thing as to love people which is the same thing as to “be known by God”.
When you are fulfilling your primary purpose in life to “love God” you are the one enjoying, loving and knowing. You are the one who is looking vertically “up” at God as David declared in Psalm 121:1 “I lift up my eyes”. You are the one experiencing the different expressions of God’s character as you observe him. Recall the story of Hagar in Genesis 16:13. When she realized that God saw her in her distress, she realized that one of God’s names or his character trait was He is “El Roi” or the “God who sees me”. You are the one who is prioritizing God as the most important object of your attention, honor, adoration, worship, all of it (seeking first the kingdom of God in Matthew 6:33) And lastly, you are practicing private disciplines Dallas Willard called disciplines of abstinence like silence, solitude, study, fasting, frugality, and praying by yourself in your prayer closet.
Conversely, when you are fulfilling your secondary but no less important purpose in life to “glorify God” God is the one who is looking “down” at you as the prophets states in 2 Chronicles 16:9 in the King James Version, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” When God is looking down, what characteristics does God see in you? Does he recognize the fruits of the spirit that his son Jesus produced? Or does he see mainly vices or bad fruit? God is looking for people who are increasingly not perfectly reflecting his son Jesus to a broken and hurting world. God doesn’t care about what you do, he cares about who you have become. Have you become the type of person who prays for laborers, who honors your parents, who turns the other cheek, who obeys all of Jesus commands that he taught during his sermon on the mount?
The only way we are able to accomplish this dual mission of God is through self-denial. I would argue that self-denial is the mechanism or fulcrum of the seesaw of discipleship where the left side is knowing God (by faith) and the right side you are glorifying God (through good works) Without self-denial, you will not enjoy God, love God, know God, glorify God, you will not love people, and you will not be known to him.