Matthew 4:19
And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Luke 9:23
And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
In a world where everything revolves around self – protect yourself, preserve yourself, entertain yourself, comfort yourself, take care of yourself – Jesus said, “Slay yourself.” In Jesus the disciples found something worth losing everything for. Two thousand years later, I wonder how far we have wondered from this path. Somewhere along the way, amid varying cultural tides and popular church trends, it seems that we have minimized Jesus' summons to total abandonment.
The call to follow Jesus is not simply an invitation to pray a prayer; it's a summons to lose our lives. There is a cost that accompanies stepping out of casual, comfortable, cultural Christianity, but it is worth it. I am convinced that when we take a serious look at what Jesus really meant when He said, “Follow Me,” we will discover that there is far more pleasure to be experienced in Him, indescribably greater power to be realized with Him, and a much higher purpose to be accomplished for Him than anything else this world has to offer. And as a result, we will all – every single Christian – eagerly, willingly, and gladly lose our lives to know and proclaim Christ, for this is simply what it means to follow Him.
Just ask Jesus into your heart. Simply invite Christ into your heart. Repeat this prayer and you will be saved. Should it alarm us that the Bible never mentions such a prayer? Should it concern us that nowhere in Scripture is anyone ever told to “ask Jesus into their heart” or to “invite Christ into their life”? Yet this is exactly what multitudes of professing Christians have been encouraged to do, and they've been assured that as long as they said certain words, recited a particular prayer, raised their hand, checked a box, signed a card, or walked an aisle, they are Christians and their salvation is eternally secure.
It's not true. With good intentions and sincere desires to reach as many people as possible for Jesus, we have subtly and deceptively minimized the magnitude of what it means to follow Him. We've replaced challenging words from Christ with trite phrases in the church.
If our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place. People who claim to be Christians while their lives look no different from the rest of the world are clearly not Christians.
The first word out of Jesus mouth in His ministry in the NT is clear: repent. This word is also the foundation for the first Christian sermon in the book of Acts. After Peter proclaims the good news of Christ's death for sin, the crowds ask him, “What shall we do?” Peter decidedly does not tell them to close their eyes, repeat after him, or raise their hands. Instead, Peter determinedly looks them right in their eyes and says, “Repent.”
Repentance is a rich biblical term that signifies an elemental transformation in someone's mind, heart and life. From that point forward, they think differently, believe differently, feel differently, love differently and live differently. Jesus' call to repentance, then, was a summons for them to renounce sin and all dependence on self for salvation. Only by turning from their sin and themselves and toward Jesus could they be saved.
When we become followers of Jesus, we make a decided break with an old way of living and take a decisive turn to a new way of life. We literally die to sin and to ourselves – our self-centeredness, self-consumption, self-righteousness, self-indulgence, self-effort and self-exaltation. In the words of Paul, we “have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.”
To say that we believe in Jesus apart from conversion in your life completely misses the essence of what it means to follow Him. Do not be deceived. Your relationship with Jesus and your status before God are not based on a decision you made, a prayer you prayed, a card you signed, or a hand you raised however many years ago. And the Christian life does not ultimately begin with inviting Jesus to come into your heart. That invitation comes from Him.
