Why Follow Him?
Behind enemy lines, we must approach God’s altar and humble our hearts before him. In our own strength we can do nothing. A broken and a contrite heart is the key to approaching the heart of our heavenly father. When we forsake ourselves, we can follow him with reckless abandon. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ… it is the gospel of God unto salvation. For we preach not ourselves but Jesus Christ and him crucified.
A disciple is a disciplined follower. There are five reasons for following Christ.
The first is that we have been forgiven. When we realize the depth of forgiveness, we can leave behind our old man nature at the foot of the cross, and seek the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. To experience his forgiveness, is to know and understand our Savior and the depravity of the sin nature from which he has saved us.
The second reason for following Christ is security. Security is putting our hopes and dreams into something that can never be taken away. Why dedicate ourselves to something that is here today and gone tomorrow? Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Security comes with the blessed assurance that I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which he’s committed unto me against the day of judgement.
This third reason for following Jesus Christ is joy. He chose us for a purpose to be his disciples and to follow him. Our mission is to walk with him, to follow him and to make him known… when necessary, use words. My purpose is to know him because he is my Lord, my friend, my comforter, and my deliverer. As we follow him, he will teach us how to become just like him. To know him and the power of his resurrection, being conformed to his image… through suffering and endurance in following him, he will teach us to conform, not to the world’s mold, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds… to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The fourth reason for following Christ is that when we stray, he will discipline us to return us to an upright position. According to Hebrews, God disciplines those he loves. The word of God is profitable for doctrine, reproof and correction. Correction is training to live uprightly. This corrective discipline hurts, but produces upright growth in truth, righteousness, and character. Our victory in Christ is not at the expense of others. If we feel envious of those whom God has blessed, he will teach us humility. We are not competing with our brothers in Christ. God will teach us how to live uprightly and to cheer for those who are less well off than we are… to rejoice with those who do rejoice and to weep with those who weep.
The final reason for following Christ is peace. Peace is the remedy to anxiety, worry, fear, and disillusionment. Our Peace is the result of our reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. To reconcile is to bring back together that which has been separated. Only through Christ’s reconciliation can our hearts be connected with God’s heart. God has reconciled us to himself through the sinless sacrifice of his only begotten son. For Jesus Christ who knew no sin became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. There is no peace without knowing the Prince of Peace. Jesus said, “peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
The ultimate promise of the beatitudes is, “great is your reward in heaven.” Before we can rejoice and be exceeding glad in this great promise, we must experience and endure poverty in spirit, meekness, mourning, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, reviling, persecution and all manner of false accusations for righteousness’ sake.
When Arthur Blessing came to Birmingham to conduct a revival at Pete’s traditional Southern Baptist church, some of the traditionalists in his church thought that Blessing was “desecrating the temple.” Blessing was known for ministering to the hippies on Sunset Strip. When he was reprimanded for leading a cheer for Jesus, Arthur led the hippies outside of the church to do another cheer. God is in the business of afflicting the comfortable. When the holy spirit moves, it “breaks the powers of cancelled sin and sets the prisoners free. His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me.”
Jesus did not say, “come join my church.” He said, “follow me.” Life is a journey. Journey, from the French word for “day” originally meant a “day’s walk.” The prophet Micah said, “but what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Influencers and the Journey Groups are means to connect men’s hearts to God’s heart… to create an environment where God can help himself to our hearts. Our prayer is “O that I were the man I knew to be. Lord, please make me that man!” This is a prayer that God yearns to answer. God says come and die; lay your life on the line… die to self to live for me. Jesus said, “he who loses his life for my sake shall find it.” For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of him who loved me and gave himself for me.
God give us men! Men who have a heart totally devoted to you.
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael