Living by Faith--Is it for today?

Here's another article that I stumbled upon many years ago.

FORSAKING ALL TO FOLLOW JESUS

When Jesus walked by the shores of Galilee, he called some fishermen who had just caught the biggest haul of their lives: "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men!" Immediately they forsook all and followed him! (Luke 5:2-11 ) They forsook the fish, the nets, their boat, their livelihood, their old life, and even their poor old father!

How could they do such a thing? How could they forsake their living, and their own family and friends, without even giving notice, to follow this strange Stranger and his motley crew? They did it because he offered them a better life, a better job, with a better Boss, for a better family, and with better rewards! Why "labour for the food that perishes" (John 6:27 ) when you can win immortal souls, who will be your friends forever!

Someone said, "First let me say farewell to my father." Jesus replied, "He that puts his hand to the plough and then looks back is not worthy of me!" (Luke 9:61-62 ) "But let me at least bury my father," said another. (The father probably wasn't even dead yet, and this might have taken months or years!) Jesus firmly said, "Let the dead bury the dead! You come and follow me!" (Luke 9:59-60 )

God refuses to take second place to anything or anyone. He will not let you put any other god before him - not your old job or your old boss or even your old family and friends! God is your Boss now and he has a new job for you that will not wait. This is God's first test for every would-be disciple. To see if you love him enough to put him first by forsaking all to follow him!

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you!" (Matthew 6:33 )

God will not tolerate you putting anything else before him and his work. If you can bring the boss and family with you, fine. But obviously the disciples' father was unwilling to leave his boat business and all those nice fish and follow Jesus with them--and we never hear of him again. The father who stuck by the business vanished into oblivion, while his sons wandered off with a perfect Stranger and made history, helping millions of souls for eternity.

Isn't it ridiculous now to compare the business, the father, and the family, which all soon perished, with the millions of immortal souls who have been saved through the decision of those fishermen to put God first that day, drop everything, and follow Jesus! Now that we can see the results, it's easy to know they made the right choice despite their father's objections and the wrecking of his business.

Nothing is more important than God and his work of love to save the world. God's only time is now! The guys who stalled never came back. And their list is longer than the list of followers. Many are called, but few have chosen to follow him above all. Who and what are you going to put first?

Why not ask the boss and family to come along? They could follow just as well, you know.

The Lord makes the entrance exams hard so we'll know right away if we've got what it takes.

It's kind of like being born: It's a crisis experience that the mother and baby go through. If they can make that they can usually make the rest pretty well. From then on you just go step by step and grade by grade and it becomes a little more spread out, like the growth of a baby.

Lukewarm believers make God sick to his stomach. (Revelation 3:16 ) He says the double-minded are "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest." (Isaiah 57:20 ) I cannot comprehend people's hesitation in serving the Lord all the way! If he's worth serving at all, he's worth serving full time and with all that you have!

How about you? Are you ready to give up everything, in absolute loyalty, and full-time service to Jesus?

Thanks, Boidae. I don't think it has degenerated either, but I do think it needs more cowbell! lol

Allan wrote: "Everything has become distorted to the point where money is the main motivator."

There is some truth in that, since Jesus described the world in his day as a "green tree" compared to what he described as a spiritually "dry tree" in our day. People certainly have become worse. But I think money has been the main motivator ever since it was invented (by the Babylonian Empire).

The thing for us as Christians (if we hope NOT to be part of that "dry tree") is whether we are going to go with the flow or whether we are going to stand up for the truth in what Jesus taught. He said that if we are ashamed of his teachings, he will be ashamed of us when he returns.

I don't think Jesus taught that we should just go along with the materialistic values of the world (albeit with some kind of a holy veneer over it all) until he returns either. As has already been said, the first disciples took Jesus literally; the Book of Acts church took him literally; and even to this day there are a few of us who are still trying to take him literally. We may be small, and thus open to ridicule, but really, where is there anything else that is solving the problem?

MOST stuff labelled as "foreign aid" is actually military aid; and even when Christians talk about doing something for the Third World, it rarely has to do with feeding them. Instead, it's all about "preaching the gospel" to save their souls, while taking little thought for what our greed has done to them physically.

Governments and multi-national corporations "give of their abundance" as Jesus said of the rich Pharisees who threw so much into the Temple treasury. They can afford to do this, because they GOT their wealth by ripping off the poor (in profits) to begin with. They are definitely not Robin Hoods. They take from the poor and give tokens back to the poor.

Wheras Jesus commended the widow who threw two mites into the treasury, because it was all that she had.

It's not hard to get the Krugers of the world to say that money is not going to solve the spiritual problems of the poor, and yet they still push money as the solution. (Notice that Kruger keeps talking about shipping missionaries to the Third World... not wheat.) So if we can agree that it is ultimately spiritual growth that God is looking for, are we going to find this spiritual growth through using man's values and reasoning?

As I've said previously, I give to the poor not because it is going to solve their problems, but because it helps to solve mine. God wants me to forsake faith in money in favour of faith in him. And when I've learned that, then I can really be of some spiritual help to the people I have helped materially. But a fat cat with a cigar in his mouth telling the poor that they just need to ask Jesus into their hearts doesn't solve anyone's problems.

This is an interesting topic, because I believe that it helps us to delineate between Christianity and the values/weapons of the world. Sadly, Kruger expresses (albeit not as sleazily) what is the position of the vast majority in the churches. The churches in America are NOT, on the whole, interested in helping the poor, or in obeying any of the other teachings of Jesus either. The churches are a Wal-mart of a different colour... experts on constructing Temples, mostly. Not sure whether Wal-mart or the churches has the most wealth, though both of them make token donations to the poor from their incredible wealth (and get what media coverage they can for it).

Meanwhile, the kingdom of heaven (which may include individuals within the churches) continues to quietly grow like the mustard seed into the tree that God wants... doing things God's way. And one of the ways that God tells his people to do it is SECRETLY. I'm not saying that a lot was done by genuine Christians, simply because there are so few genuine Christians. But I am saying that what counts in God's eyes is the MOTIVES people have for doing things, and only those things done secretly count in the eternal scheme of things.