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Following Jesus Daily

"Then He said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'"

(Luke 9:23 NIV)

Following Jesus is not a one-time event but a daily commitment. It means surrendering your will and desires to align with His. Jesus calls us to live a life of love, sacrifice, and obedience to God's Word. Each day is an opportunity to grow closer to Him and to live out your faith.

When you began to follow Jesus, you became what is called a disciple of Jesus. To be a disciple means to follow the disciplines of a particular person, faith, or religion.

Discipleship requires daily trust and action - learning, praying, and living like Jesus. He is our ultimate example.

We’ve covered a few things that you can do to follow Jesus practically (become familiar with your Bible, pray, worship etc.), but walking with Jesus every day can also look like any number of scenarios. Here are a few to give you an idea of what I mean:

• Someone cuts you up in traffic and you are tempted to beep your horn, stop your car and give the other driver an earful of your anger. Knowing Jesus and following Him, submitting to His ways would look more like NOT beeping your horn, staying in your car and offering forgiveness to the person who cut you up in traffic. This may be considered weak, but it actually requires great strength of character, great love and a posture of humility to set aside our preferences and follow Jesus’s way of peace and forgiveness.
• Someone gossips about you to a friend of yours and your friend tells you what they have said. You may be tempted to share a harmful secret you know about the gossiping individual and spread it around to seek revenge. Knowing Jesus and His ways means NOT seeking revenge but peacefully finding the person who was speaking about you and having a mature conversation about why they perhaps did that. Forgiveness, again, would play a huge part in this scenario.
• You’re in town and see an item of desire in the shop window and are immediately torn. You have many *insert item here* but this particular one has also caught your eye. Rather than behave extravagantly and purchase multiple versions of an item you already own, you decide not to store up possessions and walk away.

These may seem like trivial and small situations, but it is this kind of life circumstance where the rubber really hits the road. Are we going to let our human, fleshly nature take control, or will we remember that anger, revenge and greed are not conducive to following a holy God?

One way to begin to focus on Jesus’ ways is to start your day by asking Jesus how you can follow Him. Consider a small step of obedience today - whether it is an act of kindness, reading Scripture, or choosing to forgive someone. These seemingly small things make all the difference.

Jesus,

Teach me how to follow You each day. Give me the strength to deny myself and trust Your plan for my life. I know that your ways are better and that your plan for my life is perfect. Help me to listen to you and walk in Your ways.

In Your name,

Amen.