Who do you Follow?

To truly follow Christ means He has become everything to us.

Everyone follows something: friends, popular culture, family, selfish desires, or God. We can only follow one thing at a time (Mat 6:24).

God states we are to have no other gods before Him (Exo 20:3; Deut 5:7; Mk12:30). To truly follow Christ means we do not follow anything else.

Jesus said in Lk 9:23, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” There is no such thing as a “halfway disciple.”

As the disciples demonstrated, no one can follow Christ by the strength of his own willpower. The Pharisees were good examples of those who were trying to obey God in their own strength. Their self-effort led only to arrogance and distortion of the whole purpose of God’s Law (Lk 11:39; Mat 23:24).

Jesus gave His disciples the secret to faithfully following Him, but they did not recognize it at the time. He said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (Jn 6:63). And “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them” (verse 65). The disciples had walked with Jesus for three years, learning, observing, and participating in His miracles. Yet, even they could not follow Him faithfully in their own strength. They needed a Helper.

Jesus promised many times that, once He had ascended to the Father, He would send a “Helper” to them—the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26; 15:26). In fact, He told them that it was for their good that He was going away so that the Holy Spirit could come (Jn 16:7). The Holy Spirit indwells the heart of every believer (Gal 2:20; Romans 8:16; Heb 13:5; Mat 28:20).

Jesus warned His followers that they were not to begin testifying of Him “until you have been clothed with power from on high“ (Lk 24:49; Acts 1:4). When the Holy Spirit came upon those first believers at Pentecost, they suddenly had all the power they needed to follow Christ, even to the death, if needed (Acts 2:1–4; 4:31; 7:59-60).

Following Jesus means striving to be like Him. He always obeyed His Father, so that’s what we strive to do (John 8:29; 15:10). To truly follow Christ means to make Him the Boss.

That’s what it means to make Jesus Lord of our lives (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3; 2 Cor 4:5). Every decision and dream is filtered through His Word with the goal of glorifying Him in everything (1 Cor 10:31).

We are not saved by the things we do for Christ (Eph 2:8–9) but by what He has done for us. Because of His grace, we want to please Him in everything. All this is accomplished as we allow the Holy Spirit to have complete control of every area of our lives (Eph 5:18). He explains the Scriptures (1 Cor 2:14), empowers us with spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:4-11), comforts us (Jn14:16), and guides us (Jn14:26). To follow Christ means we apply the truths we learn from His Word and live as if Jesus walked beside us in person.