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Why Should We Follow Jesus?

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

The question has been asked, What is the point in being a follower of Jesus?

It is a valid question and deserves a good answer. 

After all, who is this Jesus who came along 2000 years ago? Recorded history tells us that He showed up thousands of years after people had already been worshipping God.

This is a hard question, to be sure. For the answer, we must turn to the Bible, which is the inspired word of God. 

The Bible is not a single book, but actually 66 books written over a period of approximately 1500 years by around 40 different authors.

Let’s take a look at John 14:6-7 for the answer to our question. 

As it happens, Jesus was answering a question from one of His disciples about following Him.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

These are bold words, but if we’re serious about seeking God and serving him, we must take them to heart. 

If there truly is just one way to God—and Jesus is it— then we must become one of His followers.

To do otherwise is to risk our eternal destiny. If we’re wrong, then we’ve lost nothing. But if we’re right, then we stand to gain much. I’ve written about this before in another post.

Just a few verses before the ones above, Jesus says,

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

John 14:3

Jesus wants us with Him. He already has a place picked out in Heaven for every one of His believers.

And just so he’s clear and there’s no confusion—with some 4300 different religions in the world by one estimate—He tells us exactly how to get to God, and it’s through Him.

So, what do we need to do to become a follower of Jesus?

First of all, we must understand our need for Him. 

Romans 3:23 tells us,

For all [emphasis mine] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23 explains the penalty for our sins as well as our reward for following Jesus: 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 10:9 tells us how to accept Jesus into our lives and be forgiven of our sins:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The final step is crucial. Find a good, Bible-believing church and tell the pastor that you have accepted Jesus into your life. Ask to be baptized and begin attending the church.

In Acts 2:38, Peter the apostle says,

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

While baptism itself does not save you, it does represent our death and rebirth in Jesus. Likewise, church attendance is not mandatory for salvation, but Christians go to church to worship God and associate with other believers.

So, to answer our original question about following Jesus…

Jesus is our pathway to God. He is the only way to be forgiven of our sins, become reconciled with the Father, and experience eternal life with Him.

For me, that’s reason enough. What about you?

Four

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I hugged him and told him goodbye. He probably told me to be careful on my way back home, but I don’t remember. I climbed into my car and pulled onto the highway, making a mental break from my brother and preparing for my long drive home. My mind was filled with all the events of the weekend — seeing my old classmates at the reunion, driving past the the house where I grew up and seeing the inside warmly lit, visiting with my extended family. It would take me quite some time to process the deluge of emotions swirling around inside my head from all that had happened that weekend. These emotions were so intense that my relationship with my last surviving brother was not of much importance at that moment. I didn’t know it then, but we would let years pass by without so much as a word to each other. In fact, today marks four years exactly since I last saw or spoke with my brother.

I had felt it creeping up on me. These four years have not elapsed without weekly and almost daily realizations that more and more time had passed since our last conversation. For the first year or two, each time I would think about it I’d say to myself something like, Yes, I really should call him. We are flesh and blood after all. We shouldn’t go on like this without having at least some kind of relationship. I would often picture myself several years down the road, stressing over finally calling him after such a long time. I never wanted to become one of those middle-aged adults you see on TV who reestablishes contact with a brother or sister after decades of separation.

family-of-originHowever, for the last year or two, I haven’t cared so much. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an  adult, it’s that time has a way of softening painful emotions. The importance of difficult situations and their attending emotions seems to diminish ever so slightly with each passing day, week, and month. Now when thinking about the the whole situation, I have pretty much resolved myself to the fact that I no longer have any siblings (my sister is a whole other story), a condition that I anticipate will in all likelihood remain the same for the rest of my life.

Of course I feel some guilt for this situation. I could easily have picked up the phone and called him at some point over that last 48 months. I never did, however. I’d say this is mostly because the thought that he never bothered to call me either showed exactly how much worth he had placed on the relationship. Why should I bother to go out of my way when it is quite apparent that he has no desire to maintain a relationship with me? I would very conveniently put my apathy for him out of my mind.

I regret not maintaining a relationship with him. The concept of a strong family unit was always important in my family of origin. My mother used to say, “Family is all you’ve got. Girlfriends and boyfriends will come and go, but you’ll always have your family.” Also, I remember the day she told me that biologically I’m closer to my siblings than to either of my parents. She explained that we siblings all came from the same two parents, making us biologically as close as possible.  But for that same reason (that we’re a product of both parents), we’re not as biologically close to either of our parents individually as we are to our siblings.

As for my father, his way of encouraging tight family connections was to tell us when we were going out for the evening, “Don’t do anything to disgrace the family.” There is no telling how many times I heard that appeal to my siblings when I was younger, and then to me personally when I reached my teen years and began going out regularly. My guilt over not calling my brother makes me feel like I’ve let the family down in some way, like maybe I’d still have a brother to talk to if only I’d called him at some point.

Perhaps, after all these years, the time is right to reach out to him. I can’t help but wonder about his spiritual state. If he died today, would I have any assurance that he’d experience eternity with God instead of suffering and eternal isolation from Him? No, I don’t.

I guess I know what I need to do.

A Special Night

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

My father was not one to laugh a whole lot, at least in the company of others.  Most of the time he seemed weighed down by the pressures of his life – our home, his business, other financial matters perhaps.  It is for this reason that I so fondly remember those few times that he laughed heartily around us.

One of these times was the first night that our home had cable television.  Our tiny, rural town had just been connected to a cable network and our house had been hooked up earlier on that late September afternoon in 1982.

We had experienced cable before, especially me.  My sister had gone away to college a few years earlier and when I went to visit her, I would always stay up as late as possible, watching HBO and whatever else I could find on her TV.  I was especially excited because we now had not one, but three premium movie channels to choose from, as well as several other standard cable channels of that time – TBS, USA, ESPN, and others.

That night came our first opportunity to dive into the world of cable television together as a family.  The movie “Airplane!” was on HBO.

Mom and I were watching it in our den and Daddy was watching it in his room.  He always watched TV in his room by himself at night.  I think that was his way of escaping away by himself.  He had to deal with people all day at work, so that was his time to relax and be himself.  As my mom and I watched “Airplane!”, every so often he would walk through the den and ask us if we’d seen such and such part of the movie.  Yes we had.  A couple of times we laughed about one scene or another.

Finally, he decided to stay in the den and watch the movie with us.  He rarely sat down in the den at night.  Come to think of it, he rarely sat down in the den at all.  At any rate, I remember thinking that it was nice that we could all sit there and watch TV together. We three kept laughing at all the funny parts of the movie.

Finally, one scene pushed us over the edge.  We lost it when a lady on board the plane has a panic attack and the stewardess (as they were called in that day – now they are “flight attendants”) begins slapping her face to calm her down.  The camera pans down the inside of the plane, and we see a line of people waiting to get their turn at her.  They are all holding something – a wrench, a baseball bat, a crowbar .  The three of us were rolling with laughter.  I looked over at Daddy and he was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes.  I remember that he had to take off his glasses so he could wipe them with the handkerchief he always kept handy in his pocket.  I don’t think I ever saw him laugh so hard as he did at that moment, either before or after.  It was a great evening to be together as a family.

Every time I think about “Airplane” that special night comes to mind.  It reminds me that there are many good times to be had in life.  Sometimes they’re planned, and other times they just happen.  And sometimes you don’t realize they’re happening until long after they’ve ended.