31 Days toward Spiritual Maturity — Day 7
January 30th, 2008 Posted in 31 Days toward Spiritual Maturity, Growth
FOLLOWING CHRIST — The Call to Follow Christ
Did you know that you have a calling? Not only did God know before He brought the universe into existence that you would exist now, He knew who He wanted you to be and what He wanted you to do! You have a calling placed on your life!
If you study the lives of Jesus’ original disciples, you’ll see that they were called. Jesus took the business of calling them so seriously that He stayed up all night praying before He called them the next day: “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:” (Luke 6:12-13). The gospel writer Luke recorded five incidents when Jesus said to someone, “Follow me.” (Luke 5:27, 9:23, 9:59, 14:27, 18:22
Jesus extends the same call to us. The primary emphasis of our calling in life is to follow Jesus Christ. Following someone means that you can’t go where you want to go; you go where the one you’re following wants to go. “Follow me,” someone says to us when we don’t know how to get to a certain destination. We follow the other person’s car closely, trying to get through on the same green traffic lights that he gets through, turning left or right when he does. We don’t go where we want to go; we go where our friend is going.
Following Jesus means that we seek to live His way instead of following our own whims and desires. This is the way of discipleship. We decide to live exclusively for Him: not for ourselves, not for others, and not for any other cause.
There used to be a popular bumper sticker that read, “God is my co-pilot.” I’m sure that it was dreamed up by someone with good intentions. However, more and more people have come to realize that it should read, “I am God’s co-pilot!” Being a Christian is more than inviting the Lord into our lives so that we can have His help and benefit, though He offers that, too. Being Christians means that we accept His invitation to follow Him, fulfilling His call upon our lives. He should have lordship over our lives. We’re supposed to live with the attitude that Jesus Himself had in relationship to His Heavenly Father, which was expressed in His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. It should be our prayer to Jesus even as it was His prayer to the Father: “yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
Dave
