This is kind of like a flow chart, if you've chosen your own way or the way of the world you can quit reading here, because we're going to be exploring the process after you choose to follow Jesus.
All of this is in scripture, so we're not going to be re-inventing anything! If we follow Jesus, that makes us His disciples! The definition of disciple is "a follower or student of a teacher". For our purpose, Jesus is the Teacher and we are the student! So now we start looking at what our Teacher is teaching.
First Jesus told us that the greatest command is to " love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" Mark 12:30 and if we're His disciples (remember that means we're His followers and students!) then we will take it to heart and start implementing it into our lives.
Next step after realizing that we are Jesus' disciples and we are to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts....how do we do that?
Maybe if we think about how we show love? What or who do you love? When you are in a love relationship you long to be with that person, right? You long to know everything about them. You want to please them, make them smile, hear their voice, hear their thoughts, spend time with them! Or in a more shallow way of love, if you love football (yuck! I don't!, but many people do!), you follow your favorite teams, you know their statistics, you know who the good team members are, you spend money and time to see them play. They are part of your conversation, they are what you look forward to watching or seeing, you want them to win!
Do you wear a T-shirt that boasts of your support of God like you do for your favorite team? Not likely, why not?
Do you want to see God win? What would that look like? It will eventually be seen when every knee is bent, but do you focus any energy on it? Do you pray about it? God has won the final victory, but there are daily battles that could be won! You don't wait until the Super Bowl to get involved with what your team is doing, do you? No, you watch it through every play of every game!
Ok, there are other areas that people focus on besides football or sports! It just seems like it's the biggest target in our country. In a very scary way it reminds me of the games that were played in Rome before their demise! They didn't care anything about the people sacrificed, their concern was only about entertainment. But that's not our subject here! It's a rabbit trail that I can easily be distracted by!
Do you spend time trying to relax? Down time? Yes, this is where my downfall is! But yet in scripture the only place I see that the disciples had "down time" was when they were in jail or prison. Even then, though, they were praying, worshipping and converting their jailers! John the Baptist loved the Lord God and for him that meant preaching to everyone that would listen to him, until he was put to death! Peter loved the Lord God, it meant living a life consumed by God, until he was put to death. Stephen loved the Lord God, it meant dying because he would not turn from his Lord. Paul loved the Lord God, it meant a total life change! The people that he loved and had previously loved him turned on him. They tried to kill him, and he eventually did die because of his life lived for God. Do you see a common thread here? Do you love the Lord God to death?
Most of us will not have to face a choice of loving God to our physical death, but how about death to our own will? Do you love the Lord God to the death of your own will? That is what a disciple is and does. One who has set aside everything of their own to follow their Teacher. It's not about part time following.
So again, if you choose to follow Jesus after He saved you from the dungeon of your sin, then the next step is to love Him to the death of your own will. His words are “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. Luke 9:23
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