Further, we sense that what troubled Jesus about the man was his self-assertiveness. While He hadn't specifically said to the man, "Follow Me," the scribe assumed he was worthy of that invitation.

Jesus often confronted this kind of human presumption. This man obviously had his own set of personal priorities. Probably he was still preoccupied with his religious legalism and traditionalism. He had not come to grips with what Jesus had clearly said about being "delivered into the hands of men" (Luke 9:44), the inevitability of the cross, and the childlike humility He wanted as the measure of greatness in His followers (Luke 9:48).

This scribe is like so many Christians today whose religious enthusiasm or participation in the church has become their best defense against making an unreserved commitment of their total lives to Christ.

A Life-Changing Personal Experience

I know. My own early years as a Christian were filled with self-generated religious enthusiasm rather than self-surrendering, honest commitment. I was carried along by the excitement of being part of a movement with adventuresome friends. When I went to New College in Edinburgh, Scotland, to complete my postgraduate studies, my relationship to Christ was bordered north, south, east, and west by Lloyd. My inner need to have Christ transform my personality had been avoided in the frantic rush of Christian activities, meetings, and the thrill of being a clergyperson. With all of this busyness, I hadn't really faced my deep need for the transforming power of Christ's cross, nor had I taken up my own cross of absolute obedience.

One day in a class taught by Thomas Torrence, I evaded the penetrating thrust of his teaching with carefully stated questions. Dr. Torrence saw my need. "Mr. Ogilvie, you can't sneak around Golgotha. You must die!"

I listened in shocked attention while my professor explained what it meant to die to self -- pride, plans, priorities, personality. It meant giving over my total life to Christ, including my insecurity, which came across in self-assertiveness. With the surrender of my life, Christ's death for me on Calvary would not only become real, but my only hope.

After the class, Dr. Torrence helped me to make the surrender he'd described so vividly. That was the beginning of authentic joy for me. What happened that winter day in 1955 was only the beginning of the ever-increasing joy I've experienced through the years.

It also accounts for why, throughout my ministry, I've shared, taught, and preached the absolute necessity of death to self as an irreducible requisite in any authentic commitment to Christ. We must die with Him in our own Calvary before we can be raised with Him in a resurrection to new life and an infilling of His Spirit.

I see the transforming power of that experience as the great need in contemporary Christianity in America. The lack of that death to self and subsequent infilling of the Spirit explains the powerlessness of so many church people. It also accounts for the absence of joyous discipleship. Churches are overpopulated with people like the scribe whose self-motivated religion was keeping him from true commitment. The obstacle is an unspoken, but firmly held, defensive "but."