What's the Point of Following Jesus?

The following is from Dallas Willard's book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and it is quoted in a blog post by Kurt Willems:

“Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth.  These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Christlikeness, were put forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person – one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays.  Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do.  For a person living that life, the hard thing to do would be to hate the enemy, to turn the supplicant away, or to curse the curser…True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.”

In his post, Willems speaks of a typical struggle that many followers of Jesus have, vacillating between an emphasis on personal holiness and doing acts of justice. I think many of us would identify with what he writes there so I recommend reading his complete post:  /http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2012/08/23/christian-life-worth-living/.