Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Mark 8:34
Every single word in the Bible is important and valuable to our lives. As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
But I believe that there are 2 words in Scripture that are the most important ones for those who believe in Jesus and desire to be His disciple. Those 2 words are “Follow Me”.
When Jesus began his ministry, He first gathered his 12 disciples and told each of them to simply “follow me”. And they immediately dropped what they were doing and left everything to follow Him and become His disciple. These disciples, except Judas, would give their lives to build His church on earth and create the largest faith community in the world! It was not built on tradition or coercion. Instead, it was built the truth of God’s Word and Jesus’ own sacrifice on a cross for the salvation of every human being.
Why do I believe that these 2 words are the most important in all of Scripture? It’s because the reason that Jesus came to earth in the first place was to bring us back into relationship with God and to show us how God wants us to live our lives. In order to do that, Jesus came to earth and lived among us, taught us what God desires of us, and then He gave His life for ours on the cross to remove the sin that separated us from God. The Bible is all about our need to follow Jesus!
Consequently, we are not to live our lives for our own purpose or desires, but rather for the desires and purpose of God. And His desire and purpose for us is to put our faith and trust in Jesus (John 3:16) and to obey his teaching and commands (John 8:31) so that we might have eternal life though Him! It’s not just about knowing God’s Word and believing in Him for our salvation. Instead, it is about following Him and living according to what he taught. James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” When we put our faith into action and live our lives for God’s purpose, we don’t have to wait until we die and go to heaven to experience God’s presence. His presence is with us right now!
So, how do we actually follow Him if he is no longer walking among us? We follow Him by following His example and all that he taught while he walked the earth. Here are 4 ways we can do that:
1. Read the 4 gospels and focus on or highlight the things he said and the commands he gave us. That is a good place to start. We can’t follow his commands unless we know what they are.
2. Serve others as He served us. Jesus demonstrated this most poignantly when he washed His disciple’s feet during the Last Supper (John 13:14-15).
3. Be humble like Jesus “who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing.” (Philippians 2:6-7) When we are humble, we are allowing ourselves to be led by Jesus and obedient to Him rather than trying to lead and do things our way.
4. Pray! Prayer is the way we speak to God and He speaks to us. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 that we should “pray continually.” When we do this, the Holy Spirit guides us and gives us wisdom and discernment to know how God wants us to act in accordance with Jesus’ commands and His will.
However, we must also be aware that being a disciple of Jesus and following Him has a cost. It will be challenging and will involve suffering (Philippians 1:29) and persecution (2 Timothy 3:12), just as Jesus suffered and was persecuted. It will also likely include failure, because although we are saved, we are still sinners and often do things that are not of God (e.g. – Peter’s denial of Jesus in Matthew 26:69-75). Many Christians in several nations around the world are imprisoned, beaten, and killed simply for putting their faith in Jesus and following Him. We may not face the same level of persecution in America, but it is still around us as evidenced by the continual persecution of the Christian bakers from Colorado and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This is the reality in our world. And if we are not suffering or being persecuted because of our faith in Jesus, maybe we are not truly following Jesus. This should give us all something to think about.
But despite the suffering and persecution, there are also blessings in following Jesus. The Apostle Peter, the one who denied Jesus, later wrote in 1 Peter 4:13-14 that we should “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit and glory of God rests on you.”
What are these blessings? First, we are freed from sin and no longer slaves to it. Christ’s death and resurrection have set us free from the bondage of sin so that we can live new lives in Christ that glorify God! Second, we also have the blessing of God’s presence in our lives as the temple curtain that separated us from God has been torn in two and we now have direct access to God! And third, we have received the gift of eternal life with our Creator through Christ’s death on the cross. Death has lost its sting, and heaven awaits all those who put their faith and trust in Christ alone.
Jesus’ call to “Follow Me” is a challenge for all of us. It will require us to have complete trust in Him and a reliance on God’s promise “to never leave us or forsake us” (Deuteronomy 31:6). But for those who will put their faith in Christ, be His disciple, and follow Him, there will be spiritual blessings in this earthly life and the reward of eternal life with God. It doesn’t get any better than that!