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Day 1: Follow Jesus
Reading: Matthew 19: 16-22
(The Voice)
16 Then a young man came up to Jesus.
Young Man: Teacher, what good deed can
I do to assure myself eternal life?
Jesus: 17 Strange that you should ask
Me what is good. There is only One who is good. If you want to
participate in His divine life, obey the Commandments.
Young Man: 18 Which Commandments in
particular?
Jesus: Well, to begin with, do not
murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give
false testimony,
19 honor your father and mother, and
love your neighbor as yourself.
Young Man: 20 I’ve kept those
Commandments faithfully. What else do I need to do?
Jesus: 21 If you want to be perfect, go
and sell all your possessions and give all your money to the
poor; then you will have treasure in heaven. And then come,
follow Me.
22 The young man went away sad because
he was very wealthy indeed.
Jesus, in response to the teenager’s
query, instructs him to get rid of all of his earthly
entanglements and, in His own words, ‘follow Me’.
To follow Jesus is the fundamental responsibility and
purpose and opportunity of every single person who ever lived.
It isn’t to go to meetings on a Sunday morning, to join
a church, to undergo certain traditional rituals, to abide a
list of ‘do’s and don’ts’, or to hold particular political
views. It is to
follow Jesus.
And to follow Jesus has significant
implications.
First, we don’t get to go wherever we want.
Jesus sets the agenda.
He heads to the destination of His choice.
We don’t seem to have any ‘say’ in it.
We follow Him.
The upside on this one is that when we follow Jesus, we
end up in the same destination as Jesus.
Second, the movement of following Jesus
implies that we leave some things behind.
What we broadly labelled ‘earthly entanglements’ for
the rich teenager meant all of his possessions.
For you those ‘earthly entanglements’ might mean
worldviews or postures or sinful habits or some combination of
these and his obstacles.
Third, it implies relationship.
We’re not following a set of rules or a philosophy –
something inanimate.
We are invited by Jesus to follow Him.
Yes, He was crucified on the Cross for our sins (yours
and mine). But on
the third day He conquered sin and death, defeating the devil,
rising again, ascending to heaven, where He now lives, and
more than lives, reigns in anticipation of His triumphant
return. He’s
alive. And while
you may have heard a Christian phrase about ‘asking Jesus into
my life’, Jesus is inviting this rich teen into HIS life.
And He makes the same invitation to us.
Play that one out for a moment.
We follow Him, part of His life, engaging with Him in
the most adventurous, abundant experience in the universe!
You’d think that’d be the easiest
‘sell’ on the planet.
You’d think that people would automatically buy in to
that deal. But, of
course, not everyone can imagine how amazing that experience
will be. And some
are infatuated with the ‘earthly entanglements’ we alluded to
above. And, like
the rich teenager, they choose the status quo.
If you’re at that juncture in your
life, looking to decide, like the rich teenager, whether to go
all in with Jesus or to continue with the status quo, we urge
you to accept Jesus’ invitation into His life.
Yes, it will cost you everything.
But what a bargain that will be!
For those who are just starting out in
following Jesus, we’ve found the simple way of life we
introduced at the beginning of Day 1 – Infinitum (Latin for
‘boundless’, alluding to the boundless love of Jesus) – is an
excellent scaffolding around this ‘new creation’ that God is
crafting in us.
You might want to try it out.
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