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Before You Follow ....

written by Michael McBane

Follow Me. When Jesus said this He began to change the world. The horizon of life suddenly expanded. Let us look at the landscape surrounding these words? Jesus never demanded anything except that they follow Him as He called out to HIs disciples. They heard, they were smitten they dropped everything and they obeyed and or they followed. Did they have to change before they followed Him? NO. Did they have to rearrange life to follow? NO. Did they know where they were going? NO. Faith was being defined. But... in the first step that they made to follow, everything changed. Everything was altered. And everyday hence forth the landscape within them and around them would drastically be shifting. One day at a time. Jesus was precise as God is always intentional. It is hard to determine how exactly Jesus called them, meaning the language and the tone but it seemed rather simple if we take the Gospels at face value and I do. I take the words and I place them in the dynamic of a relational God. Jesus leads and gives us a way towards and into the heart of God. He is the door and we can enter into this vast world no other way. We cannot demand that we be allowed to take what we think will add to the Kingdom we must be naked and then allow God to cloth us with Christ. 

I am convinced that we never really allow the Lord to reveal who He is and will be. We do not trust, we do not rest, we are anxious and we run ahead with the slightest clue. We want to follow but we return to what we think represents God. Forgive me if I sound harsh or unyielding that is not my posture. In my words I am on my knees lifting up possibility. I sense there is more not the more we cry for in Christian culture but the reality of Christ that we fail to see. I am not seeking to dismantle everything that has been done in the name of Jesus. I think everything should continually be given to the Lord for adjustments to the point that its season may have been completed. I would think that the times that we live in would press us towards a more yielding circumference but in ways there is a greater entrenching that reinvents the wheel to retain the security of certain influences which may be ministry identities. Which recycle life more then anything. We live in a organic culture somewhat, many speak it few utilize it because they misunderstand it. So we can take what we have been given life by and allow it to fertilize the coming season with instruction and wisdom. Rather then placing a new label upon it. What is the litmus test? It is new life, disciples. It is being a light that displaces darkness.

Jesus was confident because He heard His Father say go and call these particular ones. Essentially Jesus obeyed His Father which released grace to be active in the flow of the consequence of Jesus obedience and then the disciples responding obedience. Seeking the Father, revealed an intimate relationship between Jesus and His Father. This example offered to man a way to follow. It revealed the fruit of such a dynamic. Through such Jesus heard the desire of the Father. The Holy Spirit took Jesus to the place along the roads as He searched to and fro across the earth for the hearts that yearned to know God in such a way that they would respond to the call of follow me, without hesitation.

Jesus not only heard He revealed. He said, if you have seen me you have seen My Father. What a relational exchange. This was not a bravado that boasted in arrogance. It was God reaching under man and allowing him to find hope. Jesus in saying follow Me did not rob mankind but prospered us. He demanded everything but replaced it with who He was. A distinct difference from the false promise that propagates so many words that litter the Christian community today. Should we then expect that our prosperity be found in the expansion of Christ in us and around us? I think so. But I am not comfortable with the fruit of what I see in myself and the larger community. I cannot be. I think it would be denial to state anything else and it would not foster hope.

We have tried to define seeking. How and when and everything in between. Why? So we can control it or life.We want the benefits but not the requirements of a narrow road. God in asking us to follow Him will define what seeking Him means. Will it always be the same? NO. It will be fluid and adaptable. It will be creative. It will test our minds, it will at times offend our emotions and our practicality. We may not hear how we want to or what we feel we should. It will enlarge us and then restrain us. Seeking God is the molding of a relationship that is defined by God’s purpose to allow us to know Him and in this knowing we are conformed to reveal Him. So our rules will be broken so that we adapt to God, He does not adapt to us.

As odd as this may sound, God is not difficult. I walked into the night and looked upon the stars. I was surrounded by His glory and His promise. He smiled I could feel it. I then felt Him say, I am not difficult to know. I could feel His comfort.

I believe we have strong indicators that not only have we convoluted the Gospel message but we have twisted the unfolding of the life we are compelled to live at times. Jesus did not deliver His disciples from anything except their way of life. He was fully convinced that who He was would cause a seismic reaction within each of them that would not only challenge them but awaken them to living truth and then to be living truth. He was revealing living water in a man, who was God before them. Not unlike them, not uncommon. He had no accumulating degree that made men prefer HIm. He was a servant, He did create the world with His Father but that was not how He came to them. Often we will get the message but we will not wear it. We can speak it, preach it and demand it but our landscape is unchanged. 

We are given indicators as the Gospels progress of what following would require. Everything. He told the rich young ruler to sell all they he had and come follow. Why? Jesus knew what possessed that man. He heard the cry of the mans heart I want to follow You. That spoke in the eyes of his heart. But He was entangled. Who had to make the choice? The rich young ruler did. Jesus knew the value of what this man would obtain if... the if is always our choice. The potter will mold us daily. But will we say yes?

Reputation. It will demolish who we have been as God asks us to do the uncommon. To do the very thing that does not make us wealthy in this world. Wealthy in friends, in homes, lands, in prosperity as it is defined according to the subjection to mens values and securities. It says give this or that away. We may object saying, Lord I will not have the means to then or the security to do this or that. He may then be silent. For He asked and we defined trust, we defined faith. we took our eyes off of Jesus and sank into the water.

The ways of God are so distant from the patterns most of life have woven. They are foreign to the culture of most Christianity. We have created a theme park of smoke and mirrors that rarely extends the life of God among each other with longevity. We kill the potential of life together because we have no vision beyond self preservation. We are willing to chase our tails and prop up spiritual players that live well and ask for more. Can we ask how is our life extending the gospel of Christ? Can we we question is this the particular of God for my life? Is it wrong to live well? No. But it is wrong to contain life. Follow Me let us not ask what that means and then leave the room. If God, if we allow God to answer it will shake us, it will demolish us, and it will rearrange life. We will not be in control. We will be alive!!!

Following will require a resignation to the timing of God. Timing forms a heart and understanding that complies with abiding in the full apprehension of who Christ is in the now. But it unfolds the hand of God eternally. It is formed in trust that allows God to define life not the normals of how life should be according to our concepts of life formed in the societal models of jurisdictions of acceptable.

I fear we have misunderstood the possibility that God in Christ offered when He asked us to follow Him. I fear we allowed fear to overcome us, the fear of man, the fear of tomorrow. The fear of what if. We became convinced that God would lay it out before us and we would be secure. He did He said here I am, God. I am here to give you life abundantly and the only way that it will truly be abundant is if and when it is held by me defined by me. Not once but always. This is an eternal proposition that enlarges in every step we take. This defines hope. 

Jesus choose His disciples one at a time but He choose twelve. He revealed that it would be a relationship that formed life. Not only as He led us to the Father but as we function in life one to another. Follow Me.