What Is My PurposeΔείγμα

Following Jesus

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus said follow Me and I will make you fishers of men. This is a clear command, ‘Follow Me’. We are here to follow Jesus. But what does it mean to follow Jesus? For the apostles, it meant leaving behind their professions for the work to which Jesus had called them. While we may not have to physically leave our jobs, our motives for what we are doing must change, as we have seen in the last couple of days.

Now, one of the first things that we do when we begin to follow Jesus is to be baptized. Jesus also was baptized at the beginning of His ministry, but his baptism was different from ours. Jesus took John’s baptism, which according to Acts 19:1-5 is different from being baptized in the name of Jesus.

So, what was the baptism that the early church administered, which is what we take today? It was a baptism of repentance from the world and a turning to the kingdom of God. In water baptism, we make a commitment which is the first step in our journey with Jesus. That is spelt out in Romans 6:1-6, as

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Jesus made a similar statement in Matt 16:24f - Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

We often make the mistake of seeing the cross as symbolizing suffering. It does not. It symbolizes death. We are not called to suffer but to die to the world.

This is brought out well in the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5. It says in vs 11, Peter, James, and John forsook all and followed Jesus. They did not hang on to the fishes but left them for others.

Having made this commitment to leave everything to follow Jesus, the next step is to stay with Him. It is when we stay with Him and abide in His words that we get to know Him well. Jesus said, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there”. So, spending time with Jesus is something we are to do both individually and as a community with the church. We need to commit to a community of believers where we grow in the Lord.

Jesus emphasized this in John 13:34-35,“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It is when the community of believers is a real brotherhood where we care for each other that it becomes our testimony to the world outside, that we are followers of Jesus.

This renunciation of the things of the world, and a turning to Jesus and His kingdom gives us the right perspective of worldly things. No more are they things that we run after, but rather they become instruments for God’s purposes that we use to achieve His objectives as the parable of the talents brought out.

Have you repented from the world and its attractions?