“Follow Me”

Matthew 16: 24   “Follow me.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

What do you think of when you hear the “Follow me” of the Bible?

Having looked up 30 verses concerning following Jesus, I discovered the term “follow me”, usually was preceded by leaving something first.

Leave the dead, let the dead bury the dead…follow me

Leave the shore, follow Him into the boat

Left their nets, and followed Him

Leave the family, don’t even say goodbye

Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow Jesus

Sell all you posses and follow me

Follow me out of darkness into the light

Biblically, the concept of being a disciple involved leaving and cleaving to Jesus:  being where He was, walking beside Him.  Leaving work, family, home, and all they possessed. Those are not bad things, rather just whatever occupied them.

Does Jesus call people to follow Him today?

In John 21, the resurrected Christ said to Peter, Follow me.  The context was that the following would mean leaving his nets and going on to feeding and tending His sheep.  This eventually would lead to death on the cross.

Lord, show us what that means in our lives …to follow Jesus.

We usually think of leaving sinful habits behind, and that is good, but what about simply the way we spend our time and money.  And what we do with our thought life?

If I say I want to spend more time in the word, what do I need to do to carve out that time?  What will I need to give up and leave behind?  Less important reading?  Going to bed earlier in order to get up earlier?  Or perhaps some TV time, Facebook and all the rest of the electronic ways we spend our time.

I say I want to go to another place as a missionary, certainly that calls for leaving home, family, and the familiar.

If God calls us to follow the Christ life of forgiveness, compassion, and love… and He does…then I need to leave behind bitterness, grudges, contempt and revenge.

The longer I live the more aware I am of the importance of living at peace with all men (and women) if at all possible.  Following Jesus has meant mending fences by going back to whomever the Lord brings to my mind and making peace.  Who is it that you don’t want to see at the grocery store, or run into on the street and can’t avoid?   Clear your conscience and go start making peace.

Following Jesus has meant for me a strange thing in my marriage.  My husband was a very busy orthopedic surgeon.  For years he was working long hours and I was deeply angry to be left alone raising our children.  I learned how to adjust to that very well.  Too well perhaps. Now he is home as a retired man and very present.  Now I have what I wanted and don’t know what to do with it.  He is in that space that I learned to fill with things I liked to do.  Loving well means something else now: inviting him into my space, welcoming his presence in the kitchen and in my schedule.  I need to leave the way I learned to cope and put on love.

It has been a good exercise for me to rethink what I must leave in order to be a follower of Jesus in this stage of my life.  Without sacrifice there is no need to depend on God.   He is calling me to finish well and that is about daily decisions to live compassionately, denying myself and taking up the cross.

Sandy Burdick

About the author: OHM Ministry Team

Has one comment to ““Follow Me””

You can leave a reply or Trackback this post.
  1. Pat Keller - June 30, 2014

    Loving where “following Him” has taken you and am called to do the same. Let’s see how it shows up with me and Him!

You must be logged in to post a comment.