“It started by calling them away from their old lives so they could join in His Kingdom activity.” VANCE PITMAN
Faithfully following Jesus - what does that look like?
Welcome to WEEK #4 of seeking to answer this one question. And the ONE key to understanding the answer to this important question lies in ONE word… RELATIONSHIPS.
Faithfully following Jesus has everything to do with looking at how Jesus lived while He was here, and central to Jesus’s life were three KEY RELATIONSHIPS.
Last week we considered Jesus’s relationship with His Father - you can read that post HERE.
And this week, we’ll focus in on Jesus’s relationship with His disciples.
INTENTIONAL
In short, everything Jesus did or said with His disciples was INTENTIONAL. There were no wasted moments and no wasted words. Jesus knew that His time with His disciples would be short… roughly three years. Therefore, every second of every moment of every day mattered to Jesus.
Jesus PRAYED with His disciples.
Jesus CARED for His disciples.
Jesus CHALLENGED His disciples.
Jesus DISCIPLINED His disciples.
Jesus EQUIPPED His disciples.
Jesus EMPOWERED His disciples.
Jesus ENCOURAGED His disciples.
Jesus TAUGHT His disciples.
Jesus used the brief moments He had with His followers to prepare them for a lifetime of ministry as His ambassadors.
Jesus knew that His disciples would face opposition… and they did.
Jesus knew that His disciples would face hardships… and they did.
Jesus knew that His disciples would see expansive growth… and they did.
Jesus knew that His disciples would feel overwhelmed… and they did.
INTENTIONAL
Again, Jesus knew all of this, so He prepared His followers to stay faithful to the mission that He had entrusted to them.
Question for you… how does Jesus intentionally loving, serving, developing, and pouring into His disciples impact and influence you and me in faithfully following Jesus?
Simply put, what Jesus did with and for His disciples is what we are to be doing with and for one another.
If you’ve been around GENESIS for longer than a few minutes, you know that our mission is helping ALL people walk with God. That is not something that a few of us do… NO… that is the privilege of any and every follower of Jesus.
As Jesus was intentional with His disciples, we are to be intentional with one another.
We do this in GROUPS.
We do this on TEAMS.
We do this when we GATHER on Sunday.
We do this when we CONNECT one-on-one.
We do this when we TEXT or CALL one another.
Point being, as Jesus was intentional with HIs disciples, if we’d faithfully follow Jesus, we too must be intentional with one another.
Rather than consider who is doing this for you, ask yourself, how are you being intentional with the people in your sphere of influence? Very specifically, how are you helping your fellow followers of Jesus walk with God?
Like Jesus, make the most of every moment you have with your fellow Christ-followers to help them faithfully follow Jesus and in so doing, you’ll discover afresh how you are also growing in faithfully following Jesus as a result.
