What it means to "Follow me"

How can we be a witness if we are we settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is really about abandoning ourselves?



In Matthew 4 Jesus invites his followers to "Follow me," calling them to abandon their comforts, all that was familiar and natural to them. Ultimately, Jesus calls us to abandon ourselves...leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-destruction...BUT we are so afraid of what that might mean for our lives. So what do we do…we have the audacity and pride to attempt to rationalize scripture and rationalize Christ. When we start down this path, we start to redefine Christianity and we are giving into the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with…A nice, middle-class, American Jesus.


The Danger: We are molding Jesus into our image...when aren't we called all along to reflect HIS image. He is different. He is not like us. He was PERFECT!

I leave you with this question.

If we think the cost of discipleship is great....

Do you ever wonder if the cost of NON-discipleship is even greater?

...Billions of people in the world, left in the dark as we pursue the proverbial American dream.

I'm not saying this is an easy process...It is trying and messy. It is slow, tedious, and even hard at times. It is all these things, because discipleship is not about church events and programs, it's about relationships. Jesus calls us to "Live for them, love them, serve them, and lead them." We must step outside our comforts in order to reach a world that longs for that one, great and perfect relationship.