Mark Batterson - All In Study Guide: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life

T he book All In along with this study guide and video are an invitation to experience the kind of life God created you to live. You were designed for more than a life of following a few religious dos and donts. Your heart longs for more than an hour of worship each week and a few minutes of devotional reading in the morning.

The Christian faith is not boring, mundane, or safe. It is the greatest adventure any human being can ever experience. It demands all you have and are, and then it demands more.

Over these four sessions you will be challenged to take steps, engage in actions, and follow Jesus in ways you may have never dreamed before. If you are willing to try, God will show up and infuse you with the courage and power you need to begin a new chapter of life and faith.

Below is a manifesto that will give you a picture of where God wants to take you. Read it slowly. Read it carefully. Read it with a heart that is willing to go all in and all out for God!

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.

Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes.

Keep seeking God.

Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution.

Stop repeating the past and start creating the future.

Stop playing it safe and start taking risks.

Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences.

Enjoy the journey.

Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can.

Live like today is the first day and last day of your life.

Dont let whats wrong with you keep you from worshiping whats right with God.

Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails.

Dont let fear dictate your decisions.

Take a flying leap of faith.

Quit holding out. Quit holding back.

Push all of your chips to the middle of the table.

Its time to ante up all of your faith.

Its time to go all in.

Its time to go all out.

The Christian faith was never meant to be an easy road, a painless journey, or a simple three-step adherence to a set of beliefs. To follow Jesus demands we give everything and invest all we have, and are, for the One who has laid down everything for us. He gave His life for us. The question is: Will we give our lives for Him?

He was a pastor, theologian, and author. His book on discipleship, which has since become a classic, was published when he was about thirty years old.

You might wonder: What does a thirty-year-old know about discipleship? What does he understand about the sacrifice involved in following Jesus? Why listen to a relatively young man writing from his ivory tower of the church and surrounded by his theological textbooks?

Before we are too hard on this idealistic preacher, lets hear a bit more of his story. Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not live to celebrate his fortieth birthday. He was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943 and executed by hanging in a Nazi concentration camp in April 1945. His life ended only three weeks before the Germans surrendered to the Allied Forces and World War II ended.

Why was a German Lutheran pastor imprisoned in a Nazi prison camp for two years and then executed? The answer is simple: because he followed Jesus, no matter what the cost. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was all in. He saw the evil that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement was bringing into the world and across his own country of Germany and he stood in opposition.

He joined a resistance movement because his faith in Jesus and commitment to follow the Savior compelled him to push back. He could not remain idle as countless Jewish men, women, and children were being persecuted and executed. His faith called him to dangerous and costly action.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,The Cost of Discipleship

Dietrich Bonhoeffer went all in for the All in All and it cost him everything! In his book on discipleship, aptly titled The Cost of Discipleship, he called people to follow Jesus regardless of the consequences. Before he was forty, he had an opportunity to put his writings based on the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount into practice. As he did, it cost him his life.

What are some ways a Christian can stand up for Jesus in todays society? What are some of the possible consequences we might face if we were to actually stand up in this way?

[Your Response]

The complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isnt radical. Its normal.

As you watch the video teaching segment for session one, use the following outline to record thoughts and reflections that stand out to you.

Pack your coffin

[Your Notes]

Time to go all in

[Your Notes]

A Copernican revolution the inverted gospel

[Your Notes]

Whos following whom?

[Your Notes]

Holy dare

[Your Notes]

God is doing amazing things

[Your Notes]

What is consecration?

[Your Notes]

Counting the cost of discipleship

[Your Notes]

When you look back on your life, the greatest moments will be the moments when you went all in.

1. If you packed everything you needed to follow Jesus for the rest of your life into a wooden coffin, what would you take with you?

[Your Response]

2. Read: Luke 9:23 25. When Jesus spoke the words recorded in this passage, He had not yet gone to the cross to die for our sins. What images and ideas must have gone through the minds of Jesus followers when He invited them to live out the four distinct calls expressed here? In other words, what do you think they thought Jesus was calling them to do when He said: