Thoughts on Luke - Day 43

                                                   Luke 9:57-62

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
⁵⁹ He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
⁶⁰ Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
⁶¹ Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
⁶² Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

          Jesus has just set out for Jerusalem, the place where He will eventually get crucified and people are still wanting to jump on His bandwagon because they think it is the greatest show in town. Crowds are coming from everywhere to see demons come out of people (personally I wouldn't have wanted to be there for those because those demons are looking for other hosts), dead being raised, thousands being fed, lepers being healed, and the establishment getting rebuked. The problem is, they still didn't understand why He was here. He had come to die on a cross for their spiritual healing. Even today, people take out of context, "by His stripes we are healed", and think that that relates to our physical healing. Jesus has had enough of these "followers" and tells the kind of followers that He really wants. This relates to us today because the "in thing" in Christianity is to call oneself a "Christ follower" rather than "saved","born again","believer",Christian", or all the old terms I grew up using. Let's look at the three things that Jesus says makes up a Christ follower.

    #1. Becoming a nomad or a pilgrim- Nomads move from place to place in tents. They have no designated home. Although we don't literally have to live in tents, the Bible does call our body a tent, a temporary housing for our soul. Followers of Christ see themselves as souls inside a body rather than a body with a soul. This makes all the difference in how one sees life. Also, if God tells us to move to another city, state, continent, universe, we leave. There are no such things as establishing roots as followers of Christ because our roots are in Heaven. That's where our home is. Wouldn't it be strange for a marine in Afghanistan to say, "Well, while I'm here I might as well buy a house." No, he has a nomad, pilgrim, alien mindset that this place is not his home. Also, pilgrims doesn't accrue possessions because they can't take them with them to the next place. I remember a fund raiser for some displaced Africans living in tents. They were trying to raise money for mattresses to sleep on so they wouldn't have to sleep on the hard ground. Haha. I've been on a mission trip to those people. You know what they will do? They will sell those to buy food the moment they get them. They can't take them from place to place. A Christ follower has the same mindset.

   #2. Becoming single-minded rather than dualistic - What do I mean by that? The second man saw proclaiming the Kingdom of God as something to do after an Earthly task or secular task was to be performed. In the kingdom of God there is no sacred and secular - it's all sacred. I'm not a Doctor and a Christian, I'm a Christian Doctor. I don't live a secular life 6 days a week and give the 7th to the Lord. I live for God all week long. Today I have 2 hysterectomies to do. I will be at the hospital most of the morning. Then I will go to the community center and swim laps. In both of those situations, I will encounter a number of people that I can give the good news of Jesus Christ to, and I should have in the forefront of my mind to represent Him accordingly. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ. He has turned our whole lives into a ministry. I once talked to a deacon lawyer at our church and asked him if, as a lawyer, he gets to share Christ at work. He told me that he tries to separate religion from work. WRONG! Not a Christ follower!

    #3 There is no plan B - Do you get married thinking, "If it doesn't work, I can always get divorced"? Do you get a tattoo and think,"I  can always have it removed."? You don't follow Christ and say, "I can always go back to not following." Well I guess you can if you want to be the rocky soil. I have heard a lot of messages saying check Jesus out or try Jesus - no repentance, no change, no pain, just come and see if He isn't who He said He is. They usually refer to John 1 where Jesus says to some uncommitted, as of yet, early disciples of His, "Come and see" and they don't commit to following until the "fishers of men" passage. OK, I get that. However, they aren't "Christ followers" until they leave their nets, they are merely thrill seekers who are saying what is in it for me. They are the crowd that Jesus is trying to thin out. They are the people getting in the way so the Zaccheus-es and the 4 friends have to climb trees or put holes in roofs to get near Him. They are consumers not followers. Jesus says to them, "You are not fit for service."

        Are you a follower of Christ? It's all or nothing. It's all in. "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back."