The thought presented was--

"Well, the original point seems to be that he wants to believe but cannot bring himself to do it. That requires more response from him. I have been meeting a lot of poeple like this and I have read many a quote from men like Ghandi. There is something about Jesus and His teachings that you cannot ignore and pull at you...but there is something about the church and the people within that tends to make it hard to reconcile this amazing figure in the Bible and or less than amazing subculture."

I’m going to try to keep what I am thinking as simple as possible.

I believe that the problem you are talking about here is that the Church tries to do the calling of people into discipleship and it cannot do so. Only Jesus can call people into discipleship “Come and follow me” He said. The Church has the duty of proclaiming the Word and the call of Jesus clearly—which often she fails to do (clearly, that is). The dispensation of grace without any corresponding action of faith in obedience to the call. Bonhoeffer called it ‘cheap grace’—grace without a price, without costs. The Church says—“say this prayer and all will be well”. Jesus says “follow me and learn to die, follow me and I will make you…”.

What was the effect of Jesus call on the early disciples? They got up, left all behind and followed—‘we have left everything” they said to Jesus. The call of Christ demands a response—either yes as in Matthew’s case-he got up and left his table or no as in the case of the one who said ‘first let me go and…’.

"You say you cannot believe? You can't believe as long as you disregard or flee some part of Jesus command to come. First obey the call to come and you will find that faith comes with that first step.

Remember that only the obedient have faith and only those who believe obey. You cannot have faith as long as you will not take that first step. This is NOT a work which creates faith but one is given a situation where one can have faith. The point is to get into such a situation so that faith is true faith which reveals itself as obedience to the call." Bonhoeffer

Hear Jesus’ call—clearly (the responsibility of us preachers) and respond and the way of discipleship begins.

Peace, Jim