Last week we heard how John the Baptist had several disciples. Among them were Andrew and Simon, as well as James and John, the sons of Zebedee. In addition, Philip and Nathanael were also hanging around with John the Baptist.
After John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the Messiah, these six talked for hours with Jesus, and even followed Him back to Galilee.
Some time passed, likely a period of some weeks or months.
Eventually, John the Baptist was arrested on charges of preaching against King Herod.
And it was at that time that Jesus stepped out of the shadows.
Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
Jesus walked down to the shore of the Lake of Galilee where James and John, Andrew and Simon were working on their fishing boats. They were casting and cleaning their nets, untangling them, taking the dirt and driftwood and trash and debris from the nets. It was the way they made a living. It was their lives.
Jesus simply said, “Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.” Or, in the King James, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”
They left their nets and followed Jesus. The nets weren’t worth it. Jesus was.
Taken out of the context of the other gospels, this episode from Mark is amazing. Jesus just walks up to these fishermen, says a sentence, and they walk away with Him. Either they were having a particularly bad day fixing their nets, or there was something wonderful about Jesus. Or was there something else?
A bit of all of the above.
It was a bad day because these men had followed John the Baptist. They had believed in John, that John was the man sent as a prophet to Israel to put things right again. They believed in John and his humbleness, so when he had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, they believed John truly had the word from God on this. And it was a bad day because word had come to Galilee that John the Baptist had been arrested and they understood that this…just…wasn’t….right! It was a bad day.
And there was something wonderful about Jesus. After all, Jesus was the Son of God and John the Baptist had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior to come. That day, as in all other days, Jesus had the power of God. If Jesus wanted to have Simon’s boat to follow Him, the boat would have risen above the water and followed Him onto the shore. There was something wonderful about Jesus.
But there was something else. These four fishermen already knew Jesus. They had met Him by the Jordan River with John and they had spent hours talking to Him. They had walked back to Galilee with Him, and they had already decided in their minds that this man was filled with the wisdom of the ages and was worthy to be followed.
So when the time came, they were ready…and they followed Him without question, leaving their nets behind. They understood that, with Jesus, “there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” (C.S.Lewis)
Many years earlier, Jonah the prophet had been sent by God to Nineveh. Nineveh, which lies just across the Euphrates River from modern day Mosul in northern Iraq, the area which until just a few months ago was dominated by ISIS.
In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the largest city in the world – and was considered to be the most evil city going. Jonah was sent by God to preach to the Ninevites that God was ready to destroy the city.
Nineveh was such an evil city, Jonah wanted the place destroyed by God. Besides, Jonah didn’t want to go to such an evil city – Jonah tried to catch a boat for Spain, which led to a storm and Jonah being thrown overboard to be swallowed by the huge fish or whale and to be spit up on the shore. Realizing that he couldn’t escape his mission, Jonah finally walked to Nineveh and preached that it would be destroyed in forty days.
The amazing thing about the story of Jonah is not the whale, but the fact the people of Nineveh, including the king of Nineveh, believed Jonah’s preaching.
They all fasted and put on sackcloth as a sign of their repentance for their evil, and for their humbleness before God. God relented and did not destroy them then. And then, after a few years, they returned to their old ways. Today, Nineveh is in ruins.
Can you imagine this happening in any American city today?
Of course not?
I can. I can imagine it happening. Because it has happened before, and we saw it nearly happen last weekend/
We saw it happen after 9/11. Our ink business was swamped with people who wanted to talk about God instead of ink in the weeks after 9/11. Our churches, if you remember, were filled to capacity. And then the people faded away.
This past week, Honolulu in Hawaii was hit with a false alarm about an inbound ballistic missile. By all accounts, people were shocked by the idea that their personal end might be coming soon. We’ll see if there is any lasting effect.
Sometimes, people need a shock to remind them that the world doesn’t just go on everyday like it did in the days before.
John’s arrest shocked his disciples and they were ready to follow Jesus. Jonah’s preaching shocked the people and king of Nineveh, and they changed their ways. 9/11 sent people back to church to find the God they normally left on the front porch and some invited God into their homes and hearts that day.
The times, they are a changin’ and the world will be different next year. Who would have thought twenty or thirty years ago that our presidential race would be between a former First Lady and a man famous for building gambling casinos? Who would have thought that a man who made his money owning coal mines would have been elected governor in West Virginia, the state with the most militant coal miner’s union?
Who would have thought that everyone would spend more hours each week playing – not talking – on a telephone the size of a book of checks than they spend watching television. Who would have thought that some of our most popular television newsmen, actors, directors, and producers would be unemployed because they had taken advantage of their positions and become overly aggressive toward the women – and in some cases men - around them? Who would have thought this would happen twenty or thirty years ago?
The next twenty years will likewise see change. Our existing world is melting like cotton candy in a child’s mouth on a hot summer day.
Even now, scientists are finding out that many cases of COPD are caused by a congenital shortage of a particular liver enzyme which increases the effects of cigarette smoke, and that may allow us to stop the progress of the disease quickly.
Even now, scientists are finding out ways of targeting cancer based upon the particular genetics of the tumor cells, which promises to give us treatments that kill the tumor without making us sick from chemotherapy.
Even now, engineers have developed three-dimensional printers that could allow you to print out a different set of silverware and plates each night for dinner, a Japanese style one evening and Louis XIV style the next, and then recycle the dishes for the next evening.
Even now, engineers have developed the ability to scan your knee bones and three-D print a replacement titanium knee that is the exact same size. Expect to see them late this year.
Even now, driver-less tractor-trailers are being tested to carry loads of goods on the Interstate highways, perhaps replacing 95% of truck drivers, just as 95% of typists have been replaced by the personal computer since 1980. And of course, we’ve heard that driverless cars are on the way.
Even now, software programs are being tested that help the doctor diagnose what is wrong with you.
Even now, automatic weed killing robots are working in the Salinas, CA lettuce fields as driverless tractors plant wheat in South Dakota and corn in Iowa, as orange picking robots work in Florida and cherry trees in Michigan are grown in twenty foot tall plastic tunnels to protect the cherries from frost and insects.
Even now, robotic assembly plants make windows and doors in a plant in North Georgia to custom built sizes, while hundreds of thousands of the little motors that move your car window are made by less than ten workers in a single plant. I've been in those factories.
Even now, an egg factory I’ve visited has a million chickens laying eggs that are never touched by human hands, the eggs move from the hens to be cleaned, are inspected by a machine vision system, loaded in cartons, cartons in boxes, and boxes onto pallets and then a single fork truck driver loads the pallet on the truck. But there are twenty women working every shift, 3 shifts a day pulling dead hens out of their cages and throwing them away. Otherwise? Three or four maintenance workers, a couple of supervisors, an accountant, and an FDA inspector operate the place.
Even now, four private companies are competing to put people into space again. One company plans to put a car into orbit around Mars in a couple of years to show what their rockets can do. Another company plans to send tourists into space later this year on a regular, paying basis. Another – based in The Netherlands – is planning to put people on Mars in a decade, and still another is planning on sending probes to the nearest stars.
NASA has already found over 2500 planets in other star systems, and several appear to just the right temperature for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, which makes them potentially inhabitable for people.
Over the next few years, the number of people who are retired will skyrocket. In 2025, the largest group of baby boomers will turn 65, and that means that there will only about 2.5 workers for every person on Social Security. Thank you to those of you younger than me! Yet for those who avoid early deaths due to chemical addictions – alcohol, nicotine, sugar, illegal drugs, prescription drugs – it is likely that we'll live into our 80’s or 90’s or even past a hundred years old.
When the world changes, our old ways of living must also change. John Wesley saw this in the 1730’s, and created the Methodist Societies because the huge churches around England were mostly empty. John formed groups to meet in restaurants, in union halls, in private homes, and built a few buildings, too.
Because the churches had become private clubs for the wealthy, John created groups of ordinary people who would come together to study God, to help each other kick bad habits, to support each other, and to, as John put it, “escape the wrath to come”.
The Apostle Paul saw the trouble that comes with change – and Paul saw that the world was changing faster than people expected. So Paul wrote about how to handle a changing world, a world that would soon end in the destruction of Jerusalem, the largest town in Israel. Paul wrote about the changing world two thousand years ago:
What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short.
From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not;
those who mourn, as if they did not;
those who are happy, as if they were not;
those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;
those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them.
For this world in its present form is passing away.
Things change.
Jesus walked down to the shore of the Lake of Galilee where James and John, Andrew and Simon were working on their fishing boats. They were casting and cleaning their nets, untangling them, taking the dirt and driftwood and trash and debris from the nets. It was the way they made a living. It was their lives.
Jesus simply said, “Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.” Or, in the King James, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”
They left their nets and followed Jesus. The nets weren’t worth it. Jesus was.
Taken out of the context of the other gospels, this episode from Mark is amazing. Jesus just walks up to these fishermen, says a sentence, and they walk away with Him. Either they were having a particularly bad day fixing their nets, or there was something wonderful about Jesus. Or was there something else?
A bit of all of the above.
It was a bad day because these men had followed John the Baptist. They had believed in John, that John was the man sent as a prophet to Israel to put things right again. They believed in John and his humbleness, so when he had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, they believed John truly had the word from God on this. And it was a bad day because word had come to Galilee that John the Baptist had been arrested and they understood that this…just…wasn’t….right! It was a bad day.
And there was something wonderful about Jesus. After all, Jesus was the Son of God and John the Baptist had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior to come. That day, as in all other days, Jesus had the power of God. If Jesus wanted to have Simon’s boat to follow Him, the boat would have risen above the water and followed Him onto the shore. There was something wonderful about Jesus.
But there was something else. These four fishermen already knew Jesus. They had met Him by the Jordan River with John and they had spent hours talking to Him. They had walked back to Galilee with Him, and they had already decided in their minds that this man was filled with the wisdom of the ages and was worthy to be followed.
So when the time came, they were ready…and they followed Him without question, leaving their nets behind. They understood that, with Jesus, “there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” (C.S.Lewis)
Many years earlier, Jonah the prophet had been sent by God to Nineveh. Nineveh, which lies just across the Euphrates River from modern day Mosul in northern Iraq, the area which until just a few months ago was dominated by ISIS.
In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the largest city in the world – and was considered to be the most evil city going. Jonah was sent by God to preach to the Ninevites that God was ready to destroy the city.
Nineveh was such an evil city, Jonah wanted the place destroyed by God. Besides, Jonah didn’t want to go to such an evil city – Jonah tried to catch a boat for Spain, which led to a storm and Jonah being thrown overboard to be swallowed by the huge fish or whale and to be spit up on the shore. Realizing that he couldn’t escape his mission, Jonah finally walked to Nineveh and preached that it would be destroyed in forty days.
The amazing thing about the story of Jonah is not the whale, but the fact the people of Nineveh, including the king of Nineveh, believed Jonah’s preaching.
They all fasted and put on sackcloth as a sign of their repentance for their evil, and for their humbleness before God. God relented and did not destroy them then. And then, after a few years, they returned to their old ways. Today, Nineveh is in ruins.
Can you imagine this happening in any American city today?
Of course not?
I can. I can imagine it happening. Because it has happened before, and we saw it nearly happen last weekend/
We saw it happen after 9/11. Our ink business was swamped with people who wanted to talk about God instead of ink in the weeks after 9/11. Our churches, if you remember, were filled to capacity. And then the people faded away.
This past week, Honolulu in Hawaii was hit with a false alarm about an inbound ballistic missile. By all accounts, people were shocked by the idea that their personal end might be coming soon. We’ll see if there is any lasting effect.
Sometimes, people need a shock to remind them that the world doesn’t just go on everyday like it did in the days before.
John’s arrest shocked his disciples and they were ready to follow Jesus. Jonah’s preaching shocked the people and king of Nineveh, and they changed their ways. 9/11 sent people back to church to find the God they normally left on the front porch and some invited God into their homes and hearts that day.
The times, they are a changin’ and the world will be different next year. Who would have thought twenty or thirty years ago that our presidential race would be between a former First Lady and a man famous for building gambling casinos? Who would have thought that a man who made his money owning coal mines would have been elected governor in West Virginia, the state with the most militant coal miner’s union?
Who would have thought that everyone would spend more hours each week playing – not talking – on a telephone the size of a book of checks than they spend watching television. Who would have thought that some of our most popular television newsmen, actors, directors, and producers would be unemployed because they had taken advantage of their positions and become overly aggressive toward the women – and in some cases men - around them? Who would have thought this would happen twenty or thirty years ago?
The next twenty years will likewise see change. Our existing world is melting like cotton candy in a child’s mouth on a hot summer day.
Even now, scientists are finding out that many cases of COPD are caused by a congenital shortage of a particular liver enzyme which increases the effects of cigarette smoke, and that may allow us to stop the progress of the disease quickly.
Even now, scientists are finding out ways of targeting cancer based upon the particular genetics of the tumor cells, which promises to give us treatments that kill the tumor without making us sick from chemotherapy.
Even now, engineers have developed three-dimensional printers that could allow you to print out a different set of silverware and plates each night for dinner, a Japanese style one evening and Louis XIV style the next, and then recycle the dishes for the next evening.
Even now, engineers have developed the ability to scan your knee bones and three-D print a replacement titanium knee that is the exact same size. Expect to see them late this year.
Even now, driver-less tractor-trailers are being tested to carry loads of goods on the Interstate highways, perhaps replacing 95% of truck drivers, just as 95% of typists have been replaced by the personal computer since 1980. And of course, we’ve heard that driverless cars are on the way.
Even now, software programs are being tested that help the doctor diagnose what is wrong with you.
Even now, automatic weed killing robots are working in the Salinas, CA lettuce fields as driverless tractors plant wheat in South Dakota and corn in Iowa, as orange picking robots work in Florida and cherry trees in Michigan are grown in twenty foot tall plastic tunnels to protect the cherries from frost and insects.
Even now, robotic assembly plants make windows and doors in a plant in North Georgia to custom built sizes, while hundreds of thousands of the little motors that move your car window are made by less than ten workers in a single plant. I've been in those factories.
Even now, an egg factory I’ve visited has a million chickens laying eggs that are never touched by human hands, the eggs move from the hens to be cleaned, are inspected by a machine vision system, loaded in cartons, cartons in boxes, and boxes onto pallets and then a single fork truck driver loads the pallet on the truck. But there are twenty women working every shift, 3 shifts a day pulling dead hens out of their cages and throwing them away. Otherwise? Three or four maintenance workers, a couple of supervisors, an accountant, and an FDA inspector operate the place.
Even now, four private companies are competing to put people into space again. One company plans to put a car into orbit around Mars in a couple of years to show what their rockets can do. Another company plans to send tourists into space later this year on a regular, paying basis. Another – based in The Netherlands – is planning to put people on Mars in a decade, and still another is planning on sending probes to the nearest stars.
NASA has already found over 2500 planets in other star systems, and several appear to just the right temperature for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, which makes them potentially inhabitable for people.
Over the next few years, the number of people who are retired will skyrocket. In 2025, the largest group of baby boomers will turn 65, and that means that there will only about 2.5 workers for every person on Social Security. Thank you to those of you younger than me! Yet for those who avoid early deaths due to chemical addictions – alcohol, nicotine, sugar, illegal drugs, prescription drugs – it is likely that we'll live into our 80’s or 90’s or even past a hundred years old.
When the world changes, our old ways of living must also change. John Wesley saw this in the 1730’s, and created the Methodist Societies because the huge churches around England were mostly empty. John formed groups to meet in restaurants, in union halls, in private homes, and built a few buildings, too.
Because the churches had become private clubs for the wealthy, John created groups of ordinary people who would come together to study God, to help each other kick bad habits, to support each other, and to, as John put it, “escape the wrath to come”.
The Apostle Paul saw the trouble that comes with change – and Paul saw that the world was changing faster than people expected. So Paul wrote about how to handle a changing world, a world that would soon end in the destruction of Jerusalem, the largest town in Israel. Paul wrote about the changing world two thousand years ago:
What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short.
From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not;
those who mourn, as if they did not;
those who are happy, as if they were not;
those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;
those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them.
For this world in its present form is passing away.
Things change.
During the time of John Wesley, around 1750, the number one drink in America was hard apple cider. By 1850, the number one drink in America was beer. By 1950, the number one drinks were coffee, milk, and Coca-cola. Remember Maxwell House and Folgers? Today, the top drinks in America are bottled water, coffee, and Coca-cola. What do you think the top selling brand of coffee is? Folgers - not Starbucks. As much Folgers is sold than the next three brands combined. Sometimes the change doesn't come as fast as we think.
But things change.
In 1965, almost everyone in America leased their telephone from the telephone company. It was a black cube of metal surrounded by plastic known as the Western Electric Model 500. You could throw it against the wall and then DIAL a call. Only their ugly black plastic shell could break – the phone always worked.
By 1980, everyone owned their own phone, and there were some wireless phones becoming available that allowed you to walk around the room and still talk. In 1993, I got my first car phone. By 2000, many people had cell phones. In 2007, the iPhone was introduced. Today, almost everyone has a wonderful smart phone, a computer in their hand, a phone that can break with a simple drop to the sidewalk. Things change.
In 1950, almost everyone attended a church. 90 percent of Americans claimed to be Christian, 3 percent were Jewish, 2 percent Moslem, less than 1 percent Buddhist or Hindu, and the remaining 4 percent claimed to be atheist or other.
Today, only 80% of Americans claim to be Christian, 3% are Jewish, 3 percent Moslem, 2% Buddhist, and less than 1 percent Hindu. About 10% claim "No religion".
Things change.
A few years or decades ago, you and I knew next to nothing about Christian belief. Then we understood and perhaps we were baptized at that time. we learned more and more things about Christianity. we got involved in the church, we may even have begun to teach or lead.
Now things are changin’ again. It’s time for us to seriously consider what we are going to do for the rest of our lives. Will we stay with the boats, tangled in our life-nets, dealing with our driftwood, our dirt, our trash, our debris? Or will we plunge into the world around us, learning how to use the power of God to change the world and fish for people to lead them out of the mud and grime and depression of the world?
Just one example of the grime and depression: Over 840 people in West Virginia died of opioid overdose last year. Most left children that need help. How could we help those children?
Paul tells us that the time is short.
Do you have a spouse? Work together for God’s mission.
Are you in mourning – let that go – the time is short. Soon enough you will join those you mourn for on the other side. Make this time count for something eternal.
Are you happy? Be happy, but act with the seriousness that comes from understanding the time is short. Don’t be happy today – LIVE happy and joyful every day by giving hope to those who have none.
Did you buy something this week that gives you pleasure? Like cotton candy, how long will it last? Will you outlive your car, your house? Who will get it when you are gone? Yet the man or woman or child you bring to God will be with you forever one day in Heaven.
Do you love using a tool in this world, a phone, a computer? Use them as tools and don’t become tied up with them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
What shall we do when things change? What shall we do when the world spins around us and everything we thought we could trust melts like cotton candy? What do we do when everything is breaking down and falling down and crashing down around us – our schools, our companies, our trust in our leaders, our media, our things?
The Psalmist wrote in our Psalm for today:
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
It is in God that our souls find rest. Never in the things of this world, unless they be things which direct us to God. Never in the security of a job, a friendship, a bank account.
If you want peace and rest, hang onto God, for God is our fortress, our rock, our refuge. The Psalm continues:
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.
No, not even the riches given by God are to be worshiped.
Only God. Only Christ. Only the Holy Spirit.
For these riches are what make a person truly wealthy.
When things change in your life – and they will change as the old world melts like cotton candy – the only thing you can count on is that Christ is there, saying, “Follow me.”
So why do we put our trust in everything else, but not in Christ?
Did your bank account ever sacrifice itself for you?
Did your employer die on a cross for you?
Did your iPhone drip blood that you might live?
Did all those pretty things in your home, those tools you have used so well, those friends in the world have the skin torn off their backs so you would be able to avoid Hell?
Jesus did all of those things for you.
And all He says is, “follow me.” And, as the Apostles found, He will give us everything we need. Eternally.
You know what you need to do. You know what He has asked you to do. Worship God, treat all people with kindness and compassion. Sacrifice for others. And tell others of Christ’s love. This is what it means to follow Jesus.
Of course, to follow Him means we have to give up the false security of everything else in this cotton candy world.
But things change.
In 1965, almost everyone in America leased their telephone from the telephone company. It was a black cube of metal surrounded by plastic known as the Western Electric Model 500. You could throw it against the wall and then DIAL a call. Only their ugly black plastic shell could break – the phone always worked.
By 1980, everyone owned their own phone, and there were some wireless phones becoming available that allowed you to walk around the room and still talk. In 1993, I got my first car phone. By 2000, many people had cell phones. In 2007, the iPhone was introduced. Today, almost everyone has a wonderful smart phone, a computer in their hand, a phone that can break with a simple drop to the sidewalk. Things change.
In 1950, almost everyone attended a church. 90 percent of Americans claimed to be Christian, 3 percent were Jewish, 2 percent Moslem, less than 1 percent Buddhist or Hindu, and the remaining 4 percent claimed to be atheist or other.
Today, only 80% of Americans claim to be Christian, 3% are Jewish, 3 percent Moslem, 2% Buddhist, and less than 1 percent Hindu. About 10% claim "No religion".
Things change.
A few years or decades ago, you and I knew next to nothing about Christian belief. Then we understood and perhaps we were baptized at that time. we learned more and more things about Christianity. we got involved in the church, we may even have begun to teach or lead.
Now things are changin’ again. It’s time for us to seriously consider what we are going to do for the rest of our lives. Will we stay with the boats, tangled in our life-nets, dealing with our driftwood, our dirt, our trash, our debris? Or will we plunge into the world around us, learning how to use the power of God to change the world and fish for people to lead them out of the mud and grime and depression of the world?
Just one example of the grime and depression: Over 840 people in West Virginia died of opioid overdose last year. Most left children that need help. How could we help those children?
Paul tells us that the time is short.
Do you have a spouse? Work together for God’s mission.
Are you in mourning – let that go – the time is short. Soon enough you will join those you mourn for on the other side. Make this time count for something eternal.
Are you happy? Be happy, but act with the seriousness that comes from understanding the time is short. Don’t be happy today – LIVE happy and joyful every day by giving hope to those who have none.
Did you buy something this week that gives you pleasure? Like cotton candy, how long will it last? Will you outlive your car, your house? Who will get it when you are gone? Yet the man or woman or child you bring to God will be with you forever one day in Heaven.
Do you love using a tool in this world, a phone, a computer? Use them as tools and don’t become tied up with them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
What shall we do when things change? What shall we do when the world spins around us and everything we thought we could trust melts like cotton candy? What do we do when everything is breaking down and falling down and crashing down around us – our schools, our companies, our trust in our leaders, our media, our things?
The Psalmist wrote in our Psalm for today:
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
It is in God that our souls find rest. Never in the things of this world, unless they be things which direct us to God. Never in the security of a job, a friendship, a bank account.
If you want peace and rest, hang onto God, for God is our fortress, our rock, our refuge. The Psalm continues:
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.
No, not even the riches given by God are to be worshiped.
Only God. Only Christ. Only the Holy Spirit.
For these riches are what make a person truly wealthy.
When things change in your life – and they will change as the old world melts like cotton candy – the only thing you can count on is that Christ is there, saying, “Follow me.”
So why do we put our trust in everything else, but not in Christ?
Did your bank account ever sacrifice itself for you?
Did your employer die on a cross for you?
Did your iPhone drip blood that you might live?
Did all those pretty things in your home, those tools you have used so well, those friends in the world have the skin torn off their backs so you would be able to avoid Hell?
Jesus did all of those things for you.
And all He says is, “follow me.” And, as the Apostles found, He will give us everything we need. Eternally.
You know what you need to do. You know what He has asked you to do. Worship God, treat all people with kindness and compassion. Sacrifice for others. And tell others of Christ’s love. This is what it means to follow Jesus.
Of course, to follow Him means we have to give up the false security of everything else in this cotton candy world.
Or, for that matter, are we really giving up anything of real value?
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