You can believe in someone yet still follow yourself. It is true that if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved. It is also true that the word Christian is found ten times in the Bible compared to 260 mentions of disciple. We are called to the whole thing – believe, learn, and follow (and share). Colossians 1:19-20 reads, “God was pleased…to reconcile to himself all things…by making peace through (Christ’s) blood, shed on the cross”. Once we were alienated from God. That is how the members of other faiths feel. They are always striving and never know if Heaven is for them or hell. Jesus not only promoted peace but made peace for all on the cross with the promise of Heaven. What a seemingly pathetic climax to His three year preaching career. What a loser and they treated Him thusly. I hear the same dismissal from my unbelieving connections but how can Jesus not be the biggest news that has ever happened? We are all invited to follow Jesus. Isaiah wrote about the invitation in 65:1. There he expresses that God prepared the world for grace through the Jewish people then poured out His grace for us all. It was a real debate in Acts 15:19 that non-Jews had also been invited to the party, “Therefore my judgement is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them…” then Paul follows with specifics for the benefit of the Jews because they were tied up in a knot about going outside of the familiar. Don’t be on the outside. Don’t resist how God is growing His Kingdom. Don’t be tripped up by the small stuff and follow Jesus. Following Jesus will have a price to pay. You know yours and I know mine. In reading Tom Doyle’s book titled ‘Dreams and Visions’, The account I cannot get over is of a young woman from the Middle East who accepted and followed Jesus. She wrote poetry and worship music until her iman brother learned of it and killed her for the ‘shame’ she brought on her family. The true shame is to not accept that God allows us to choose our beliefs and murder is always wrong. Expect interference and, as was spoken of Jonathan Edwards by a friend when Edwards was voted out of her church, “His happiness is out of the reach of his enemies”. May that be said of us.
