Compassion: 30 Days of HeartworkSample

Follow Me        

HEART //         

Follow Me. These two words from Jesus have life-changing implications for anyone who accepts them. When Jesus first called the disciples, He was calling them to give up everything they had ever known. When He called, they immediately “left their nets and followed Him.” Their nets symbolized their career, their ambitions and their lives. Following Jesus is a call to let go. It is a call to die to ourselves and to find a new life, a new identity. ... It is a call to live like Jesus. 

God sent His Son to the world on a rescue mission: Jesus came for people. He came to bring hope to the hopeless. He came to seek and save the lost. When Jesus called the first disciples, He called them to join Him on His mission. When we decide to follow Jesus, it’s not a ticket to heaven, it’s an invitation to a journey with Him.

So often, we minimize the call to follow Jesus to reading the Bible, praying or going to church. But the real call to follow Him means reaching out to those who are weak, to those who are looked down upon by society and to those without hope. Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus constantly spending time with those in need. We see Him constantly telling others about the good news of the gospel. If we are not actively spending our lives on behalf of others, then are we really following Jesus?

New Testament scholar Scot McKnight puts it this way: “Those who aren’t following Jesus aren’t His followers. It’s that simple. Followers follow, and those who don’t follow aren’t followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up His dream and work for it.”*

*“One.Life” by Scot McKnight (Zondervan, 2010).

WORK //      

Today, spend a few minutes looking through the Gospels in your Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and find a few things that Jesus called His followers to do. 

Make a list you can add to whenever you’re reading the Gospels in the coming weeks. 

Have you given your life to the Lord? If so, list a few things you felt led to let go of when you made that wonderful, life-changing decision.