Jesus invites us to come follow him.
Each and every one of us are given the same choice - to go through life on our own, trusting in our own ability to work things out, or to respond to the invitation of Jesus. To surrender our life to him and choose to follow Him.
Every journey begins with a single step as we respond to and put our trust in Jesus. This is a monumental first step; the Bible tells us that in this step we are brought from death to life. We are adopted into the family of God and have a new identity. We rejoice along with all of Heaven for each person who takes this step. What comes next?
Too often people fall into the trap of stopping after one single step. They trust Jesus as savior and “punch their members' ticket to heaven.” Taking one step is not the end. We are invited to become followers, not just members. Becoming a follower of Jesus is living a life of daily taking another step. Luke 9:23 - “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Daily we are invited to follow Jesus.
In our American culture we’ve also romanticized the idea of following Jesus and taking a huge leap of faith. We look at the story of Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on water. He took a huge leap of faith. Or Abraham, packing up his entire family to go where God was leading, or the countless other stories of big, bold faith.
While each of those stories are true and can encourage us to trust God in everything, we often overlook the simple steps of people who follow Jesus. Not every step is a huge leap of faith, but every step is an important act of obedience.
Not every step is a huge leap of faith, but every step is an important act of obedience.
Each step is unique. We all begin in different places and the invitation to follow Jesus begins wherever we are called from. James and his brother John walked away from their nets to follow Jesus, Zacchaeus had to climb down out of the tree, Saul had to humbly walk away from his zealous persecution of the church.
Each of us has our own story and find ourselves in a different position. The invitation from Jesus still stands: Come follow Me.
So, wherever you’re at, whatever situation you are in right now, what is your next step? What is the next step that’s going to take you closer to Jesus? How do we daily take up our cross and be followers of Jesus?
Don’t be ashamed that you’re not where you think you should be, or ashamed of where you’re at. We are all lost without Jesus.
Simply take another step. Each new day ask yourself, “What is the next step I can take?”
Go to ehope.org/next-steps to sign up for one of our Next Steps Classes.
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