Jesus said, "Follow me."
This is a call to action.
"Follow."
To follow, we must DO...yet more often than not we DON'T.
Sure, we might think we are following Jesus, IE we GO to church, we GIVE to charities and the church we READ our Bibles. etc.
And while those are all well and good - are they really examples of FOLLOWING Jesus?
Certainly they are disciplines that we as Christian's work on...but how are they "following" Jesus.
They aren't. And maybe that's why we like them!
Now, I'm not saying that we are AGAINST Jesus and don't want to follow him - we do! However, the list above most times is EASIER than following Jesus.
Oh, it's not complicated, it's not a heavy burden to follow Jesus - even he promises us that - but change is hard at times and THAT'S what Jesus is calling us to do, via Following Him.
The rest of the world follows itself.
It doesn't take much study to see this.
The western world runs and works differently than the Kingdom of God.
Money is a god in the western world - as I've pointed out before, there are people who are celebrities and deemed IMPORTANT simply because they have money! They are popular and people watch shows on them and the only reason they are known is because of their MONEY.
Is this a Kingdom philosophy? Of course not.
God calls us to something different - "Follow ME"
Not follow your friends, family, culture, church (yes), society, the next fad, the hottest celebrity, but "ME."
This is tricky too, because it's quite abstract - exactly WHAT does it look like, feel, seem, appear, etc. to Follow Jesus? Can any of use truly put a finger on it? If we can, I doubt we are correct.
And Lord knows we like things CONCRETE, black and white, straight-down-the-middle, up front and clearly defined.
God doesn't always, in fact rarely, works this way - for a very good reason too: we are to TRUST Him. Trust is easy when you know all the facts...it's quite different when you can't see two feet in front of you.
What's worse about following Jesus? Well, like many of His teachings: He gives us NO EXCEPTIONS. No way to back out - yet we still try to figure out ways around this.
Thus, we read our Bibles MORE.
We DO more "Christian" THINGS - of which I am a culprit of doing! Sure, we might be doing good - but WHY are we doing good? Because Jesus called us to it or because WE chose to do it?
The problem with following Jesus is that he doesn't call us to comfort. He IS comfort, and we will find such IN HIM - but he doesn't call us to do that. No, he calls us to follow him into areas of our lives we'd rather not go. He calls us to do things (or not do things) we'd rather not.
Instead, we get more pious - as if THAT will be a fine replacement for what Jesus is calling us to.
Sadly, it's not.
While it's a lot of ACTION at time - it's more or less just spinning our wheels. Waiting to see if Jesus forgets that he asked something of us...of course that's silly.
He NEVER forgets...and that calling will haunt us until we finally do, put EVERYTHING down and follow.
Yes this means we will have to give some things up that we love. However, this also means that we will be expected to do MORE of what we love also - which oddly, is just as "bad." As with doing, comes responsibility and cost: time, money, etc.
But if we truly trust Jesus, as we claim to, then we must trust that Jesus is leading us to where WE should be. By "we" I mean, individually.
For where Jesus is calling ME is not the same place to where Jesus is calling YOU - and sometimes that is hard to accept. There are things I am called to do, that (if I am honest) I sometimes feel others should be as passionate about - however, just because I am being called to it, doesn't mean that others are being called to something else. And because I am passionate about it, doesn't mean others have to as well.
Jesus calls us each onto our OWN path as well - and that's another reason we might not follow as often as we should: sometimes that path is lonely...often times it is...and it's supposed to be!
Those lonely times on that path are to help us get closer to Jesus, depend on Him more, so he can call us into deeper and more challenging places.
While reading the Bible, attending church, giving to the poor, even helping the poor, are great things to do - they can never, NEVER get in the way of the most important thing we are called to do:
Follow Jesus.
