If Jesus Christ were to physically walk into the room you are currently in at this very moment, and He were to say to you, “Stop everything you are doing and come follow me down the highway”. Would you do it?
You would not be allowed to go home to see your spouse and communicate your plans. You couldn’t stop at the bank to grab some extra cash. You couldn’t notify your job that you will need to have some time off. Drop everything, right now, and follow Jesus – no plan, with no idea of where you were going, and with no idea how long you will be gone.
If you were to follow Him down the highway right now in this very moment, for how long would you do this? What about sleeping arrangements for tonight? What if you had to miss a few meals? At some point, would you say, “enough of this misery, I need to get back home”.
I’ve asked this question to Christians over this last month. It has been a difficult request for some.
I’ve also asked a different question to many Christians in the last month:
“Has there ever been a time in your life, when you’ve given up everything to follow Christ?”
Four different Christians have told me, “No, I’ve never given up everything completely. I’ve always held back at least some area of my life for myself”.
These are people that attend church regularly and are trying to live for God.
There is a huge deception in the church today. It is the deception that says, in order to be a saved Christian, God wants me to do certain things and avoid doing other things. This is incorrect.
In order to be saved, you must believe on Jesus Christ.
Act 16:30-31 “and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Eph 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
If being saved from hell, judgement, and the wrath of God is determined by whether or not you have faith and you believe Jesus, then I recommend you really understand what it means to believe.
What does it mean to believe Jesus Christ? How do you know you truly believe Jesus Christ?
Let’s look at 2 separate verses.
Rom 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
In this verse we see that if you believe Jesus in your heart and you confess Him as Lord, you will be made righteous and you will be saved. Believing Him and Him being Lord – both go together.
Mar 1:16-18 “As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
These disciples believed Jesus. Therefore, they followed Him. If you truly believe Jesus Christ, He will be Lord of your entire life.
Mat 8:21-22 Another of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
If you believe Jesus and He is Lord of your life, you will follow Him, right now.
- To believe Jesus results in you presenting yourself and yielding your entire self before Him.
- To believe Jesus results in you giving up all control to Him, in every area of your life.
- To believe on the Lord Jesus is to give up all of your personal rights and all of your personal opinions.
- To believe Jesus means that there is no area of your life that belongs to you. You trust your life completely into His care and leadership.
- To believe Jesus is to give Him a blank check and let him fill in anything He wants.
- To believe Him is to say “Yes” before you even know what He is asking or requiring.
- To believe Him is to trust Him.
Would you follow Him right now down the highway? If you believed Him, you would.
Trying to live for God and do all the right things, while you stay in control is a deception. Keeping back some of your life for yourself, while you mostly are a good person, is not believing Jesus.
It was the knowledge of good and evil, while being independent of God, that killed Adam and Eve spiritually. Trying to do the right thing, while not completely surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus is worthless.
This is why many Christians are empty and in a state of misery. They have sacrificed much, but they have not died. There is only fullness of joy in fullness of death. Once we come to the place of total trust, where we have nothing left, only then have we died completely, only then have we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that we must live a perfect life without sin, in order to be saved? No. Jesus died to pay for all of your sins. But we do not intend to sin, ever again. And if we do stop following Him at any point, we come back to our senses, and we resume following Him again.
As followers of Christ, we must renew our belief and faith in Him not only daily, but multiple times a day. This includes believing in His payment for our sins. We must sign up over and over again throughout the day to believe and therefore follow Christ. This is what the Bible calls, “walking after the Spirit”. The Lord Jesus IS the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17).
What is Jesus requiring of you right now? Everything. Believe Him and receive His great love He has for you.
John 6:66-69 “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
