August 21, 2016

"After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”  John 6:66-69

Wow!

I was thinking back over my experience of following Jesus and realized it has been almost 60 years since I began following Him.

I'm thankful that Jesus invites sinners to follow Him! I'm thankful Jesus invites us to follow Him even if we have doubts! I'm thankful He never unfollows us while we work through our doubts and fears and sinful habits. I'm thankful I have never chosen to unfollow Him!

Following Jesus is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment decision to continue following Him even when there is strong physical, emotional or spiritual pressure to unfollow Him.

Obviously, since I have followed Jesus for parts of seven decades there have been many opportunities for me to unfollow Him.

I mentioned several of those pressure points or unfollow moments that cause us to decide if we should continue following or not.

• Terms - when we are faced with the high cost of following Jesus
• Transitions - when life forces change upon us
• Trials - when we are faced with difficult decisions or moral dilemmas
• Tests - when our faith is challenged with life's pressures and we wonder if it is strong enough
• Temptations - when our doubts, fears or lusts pull us away from faith and cause "unfollowing" to look like a good option
• Threats - when following Jesus leads us into a situation that puts an important relationship in danger or out job at risk or even our life

I have faced many of those "unfollow" moments during my life-long journey with Jesus. They have been difficult and even gut-wrenching at times. But at each point I have come to the same conclusion Peter came to in these verses:

Lord, to whom would we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!

Like Peter, every time for nearly 60 years whenever I have struggled with an "unfollow" moment I have made one or all of these declarations of faith.

It worked for Peter!

It has worked for me!

It will work for you!