Follow Me

No, I'm not trying to convince you to follow my blog. That would be lame and a little desperate, and I'd like to think that I'm neither of those. At least not that I'm aware of.

I'm pondering over the words that Jesus spoke to the men who would become his apostles. "Follow Me."

I am a fairly skeptical person by nature. And I wonder, if Jesus, a perfect stranger (appropriate considering His perfection), came up to me today and said, "Follow Me," how would I respond?

I think my first instinct would be to say: "Why?" And then, assuming I was actually willing to follow, my next question would be: "Where are we going?" I might not say it, but the thought would be running through my head: "And what happens if I don't follow You?"

But, amazingly, we don't get those responses from the fishermen and tax collectors who received - and forthwith answered - Jesus' call to follow. Instead, this was their response: "At once they left their nets and followed Him." When Jesus saw Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth and uttered those two words - "Follow Me" - the verse says that "Matthew got up and followed Him." No questions, no what-if's, he just got up and followed Him.

Sadly, this was not always the case when Jesus beckoned people to follow Him. There was the rich young man who boasted about keeping all the commandments, yet still lacked something in his life. Jesus told the man, "If you want to be perfect [spiritually mature], go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” So, of course, the man did as Jesus said, right? Not exactly. The verse continues: "When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."

I wonder if, instead of being like the disciples, I would be like that rich young man. Would I be unwilling to give away all that I had - both in riches and reputation - to follow a Man I didn't know, who didn't tell me why He wanted me to follow Him, and wouldn't tell me where I was going? Would you?


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Matthew 16:24
"Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me."