Verb Form of 'Christian'

I have this image in my mind of a video showing an unmarked radio controlled car. The caption reads, “Creation.” It’s picked up, dunked in water, and a sticker in the shape of a cross is applied to the hood. The caption reads, “Christian.” The car is picked up, a battery is installed, the motor revs & the car speeds off. The caption reads, “Disciple.” 

We are all creations; in baptism, we become Christians; in deeds, we are disciples. 

Or, to put it another way, “Disciple” is the verb form of the noun, “Christian.” 

But, I’m going to challenge Willard’s water-in-the-gas-tank analogy a bit and suggest that we don’t add water to the gas tank. Instead, our cars are built with a reservoir of water connected to our gas tank. That wasn’t part of the original design. But, the prototype was retrofitted with it, and it became standard equipment from then on. The reservoir has many hoses that lead to our gas tank, and more hoses are added all the time. Each hose has a valve that is open in its natural state allowing water to flow into the gas tank. These valves must be held shut in order to keep water from flowing. 

To complicate things, releasing the valve can actually be enjoyable and at least temporarily rewarding. With so many hoses and valves, it becomes challenging to keep them all shut. 

Fortunately, it’s possible for passengers to help us hold them shut, and that makes it a lot easier to keep water out of the gas. It’s a lot harder to keep them all shut when you’re alone in the car. 

But, it seems that either by choice or by negligence, a valve eventually opens. Or maybe two, or three. It feels good to take a break from holding the valve closed, and the water doesn’t have an immediate impact on the engine. Well, maybe a little, but it’s tolerable. It’s only when the engine starts running really rough that we start closing valves. And, it’s then that we discover the valves can be very hard to close. 

We don’t so much add a little sin into our lives as much as we allow a little sin to sneak out—to be expressed in our deeds, our thoughts, our words. Our sinful nature is within us, and we allow ourselves to be disobedient. 

But, if Jesus’ own hand-picked disciples couldn’t prevent themselves from sinning, how can we? We can’t. We must necessarily sometimes miss the mark. 

Our challenge, as disciples, is to hold the valves shut as long as we can, knowing that we will eventually relax our grip and then have to work to shut the valve again. That probably keeps us humble, and makes us more likely to be forgiving of others who try to keep their valves shut, but fail occasionally.