Yesterday was an awesome day of worship. Praising the Lord alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ always energizes my soul and encourages me to keep on keeping on. Rejoicing with new believers who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ and are now exercising that faith through baptism reminds me of the magnificent grace of God.
Corporate worship. Real fellowship. Obedience exercised. Pausing to remember what God has done in my own life. All wonderful. All needed.
But I was captured by a stirring within me. A moving of the Holy Spirit. A moving that has me pondering yet again.
Pondering…
What does it REALLY mean to follow Jesus?
Our pastor began a new sermon series yesterday that reflects much of the same thoughts as those of David Platt in his recent book entitled Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. I read this book a few months back and shared my thoughts here. It was a great book. And, it challenged me; even shook me up a little. But, I realized yesterday as our pastor shared his heart that I had not been shaken to the very core of my being. I had not allowed myself to go to that point of absolute surrender…total abandonment…the place where it’s ALL of Him and NONE of me.
It’s not that God wasn’t calling me to that place of total abandonment.
He was definitely calling me. Beckoning me. Demanding me to come to Him, to deny my selfish desires and completely relinquish my wants and live in His will.
He called, yes. But, I did not heed His calling. Instead, I remained inside the comfortable world I had created for myself. A world that doesn’t require much of me. A world where I control the goings on around me. A world where my desires are met. A world that was, well…all about me.
The past few months have found me in a place where I’ve been shaken. Shaken to the very core of my being. Challenged to live beyond mediocrity. Stretched and pulled in all areas of my life. God has been radically shaking me. He has been emptying me of myself and filling me up with Him. It’s been hard. It’s been painful. Denying self is not usually an easy thing. But, it is a necessary thing.
So, as I sat yesterday listening to our pastor share his heart, and as the Holy Spirit began to stir within my own soul, I began pondering again…
What does it REALLY mean to follow Jesus?
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“Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’ “
Luke 9:23, NIV
What does following Jesus mean to you?
