You Follow Me!

All this was after Jesus had died on a cross for our sins and had been resurrected from the dead and had appeared to many people, including to his disciples. Peter and some of the other disciples had just gone fishing and had caught nothing. Then Jesus appeared and he told them where to cast their nets, and then they caught many fish, for it was the Lord who helped them to catch many fish. And then Jesus invited them all to breakfast.

After breakfast is when Jesus had his discourse with Peter asking him three times if he loved the Lord. The first time he asked him if he loved him “more than these,” i.e. more than anything else, in reality. And when Peter responded that he did, the Lord then told him to feed and to tend his sheep. For his sheep were his followers, his disciples (male and female), and to feed them and to tend them was to teach them the truth and to minister to them.

Jesus said to Peter: “’Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.’ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

“Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!’ So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’” (John 21:18-23 ESV)

When Jesus calls us to follow him with our lives, he doesn’t promise us an easy life. He does not promise us fame and fortune, but a life of suffering and rejection and of being hated and persecuted by others. But if we surrender our lives to follow him wherever he leads us, he also promises a life of purpose and direction, and of joy and peace in the Lord Jesus in knowing that we are in the center of his will, doing what he commands.

He promises us that we will be used of him in the lives of other humans to make a difference in their lives, to bring them the truth of the gospel, to minister to their needs, and to show them love and kindness, and in so doing we will bear much spiritual fruit for God’s eternal kingdom. But we don’t do what we do to get rewards. We do what we do because we love God and because we love our fellow humans and we care deeply about them.

But let me say here that “love and kindness” are not to be interpreted according to worldly and fleshly standards, but according to the Word of the Lord and the divine character and will of God. So this is not talking about lying to people or withholding necessary truth from them to make them feel good about themselves. This love and kindness never compromise truth and righteousness but are always centered in the love and purpose of God.

Now another thing this passage of Scripture teaches us about the calling of God on our lives is that what our Lord does in our lives, and how he chooses to use us, may not be the same as what he does in another person’s life and how he chooses to use him. For he didn’t make us all the same, and he didn’t gift us all the same, and we aren’t all the same body part, but the body parts and the gifts are varied, just as we are all varied from each other.

Yet, there are many things we are taught in the Scriptures that we are all to be doing and with regard to how we are all to be living, and so those things do apply to all of us. But if the Lord calls us to a specific ministry, we aren’t to then start looking at other people and saying, “What about them?” For what God chooses for them may not be the same as what he chooses for us, and we just have to obey him regardless of what other people do.

Are we to be concerned for one another and our walks of faith? Absolutely! The Scriptures do teach us that we are to look out for one another, and we are to encourage, exhort, urge, counsel, instruct, and warn one another, speaking the truth in love to one another so that none of us are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin nor led astray by people in their deceitful scheming. But we should follow Jesus regardless of what others do or don’t do.

[Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; Jn 4:31-38; Jn 13:13-17; Jn 14:12; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:14-18; Acts 26:18; Rom 10:14-15; Rom 12:1-8; Rom 15:14; 1 Co 12:1-31; 1 Co 14:1-5; Eph 4:1-16; Eph 5:17-27; Php 2:1-8; Col 3:16; Heb 3:13; Heb 10:23-25; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 Jn 2:6]  

Come, Thou Fount 

By Robert Robinson / John Wyeth

Come Thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount – I’m fixed upon it –

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Hitherto Thy love has blessed me

Thou has brought me to this place

And I know Thy hand will bring me

Safely home by Thy good grace

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Bought me with His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylNnG5bxnsE

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