“Follow”

“If any man serve me, let him follow me.”* (John 12:26)

What does it mean to follow Jesus? Many are singing—

“I will follow Thee, my Savior,
Wheresoe’er my lot may be;
Where Thou goest I will follow,
Yes, my Lord, I’ll follow Thee.

“Though I meet with tribulation,
Sorely tempted though I be,
I remember Thou wast tempted,
And rejoice to follow Thee”*—

yet they have but little comprehension of what it means to follow Jesus. There can be no following of Jesus except there be a denying of self and the bearing of a cross. Jesus bore a cross—not only a wooden one up the hill to Golgotha, but also another and heavier cross from the day He entered His public ministry (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34, 10:21; Luke 9:23). Note that this cross is to borne “daily.” Examine the ministry of Jesus, and see the cross He bore. This is the cross you are to bear in following Him.

But you have a well-furnished home, you receive a salary for your ministry, people speak well of you, and recommend you as being a good preacher and doing a good work. Where then is the cross of Christ? Ah, you say you have some persecutions. A close examination may reveal that perhaps the only persecution you have comes from those who envy you in your prominent position and good salary, and are itching to get it.

Jesus did not teach that you cannot hold a legal right to a home, but He did teach that whatever you possess of earthly things must be regarded as being not your own, but merely held in stewardship. You are to take that attitude toward every earthly possession. That word mine is not to be found in your vocabulary. Miss Mary Bosanquet (who later married John Fletcher) said of Mrs. Sarah Ryan and herself and the other saints in their community, that “the cold words of mine and thine were never known between us.”1 John Wesley, in writing to Mrs. Ryan, said: “To converse with you […] is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you without thinking of God. Others often lead me to him; but it is, as it were, going round about; you lead me straight into His presence.”2

When you hold yourself and what you possess as your own, you rob yourself of the presence and power of God. If you will read 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 you will get some understanding of how to regard every earthly thing—even the wife of your bosom. Your attitude should be such that nothing will hinder you in doing God’s will: nothing used for selfish purposes, but everything done to His glory purposely. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”* (1 Corinthians 10:31) Multitudes of professed followers of Jesus will neglect that scripture, or give it such an interpretation as will allow them to indulge in many of the lusts of the flesh. But “ye are not your own…. ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”* (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) In all the uses of your body, in all you do with it and for it, there is to be a higher consideration than self-gratification. This extends to all the little things of daily life—to the spending of every penny and of every moment of time. I may not gratify my appetite without considering the glory of God, and I cannot carelessly lounge in my easy chair. Do all, even these, with God’s glory in mind, and whatever God’s glory calls for is to be done at whatever cost to bodily comforts. If you will live this sort of life you will surely find a daily cross to bear. That body will needs meet with many denials, and some very severe.

Please read the teaching of Jesus given in Matthew 19:9-12:

And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.

But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

[Matthew 19:9-12]

You may say that you do not understand these words. Do you want to understand them? Do you pray earnestly that you may understand them? Jesus understood that not all were able to receive this saying, and it was said only to those who are able to receive it—but are you very happy because of it? Are you ready to conclude that it must not apply to you? Have you ever prayed earnestly that you might be able to receive it, and thus live to the greater glory of God? My dear brethren, these words do teach each of us to keep free from any entanglements, that we might serve God more fully and intensely. (See also 2 Timothy 2:4.) Jesus will never give you a cross heavier than you can bear, but beware lest you throw it down long before you get to the breaking-point. There is, oh, so little of going against the flesh, of keeping the body under.

Now please read Luke 9:57-62:

And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

[Luke 9:57-62]

Can you not now feel that following Jesus forbids looseness or carelessness in life? Life is full of meaning, and that meaning is to live wholly unto God and never to the pleasures of the flesh. This is the cross-bearing. Some may say that these Scriptures are beyond human ability to comprehend—and they are, on our own. But if we will get down into the secret place of God’s presence in true humility, the Holy Spirit will teach our human intellects through our human spirits and we shall know the meaning of all Christ’s teaching. Jesus never taught anything He did not intend us to understand. If we do not understand some of His sayings, it may be because we are not willing to go with Him into that death and separation from the world, and cease to lean upon our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5), that He may teach us of spiritual things.

Jesus says, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Should we not want to know what “looking back” means? If it makes us unfit for the kingdom of heaven, should we not diligently seek to understand what Jesus meant, that we may avoid this danger? If you pass by these words, thinking it is of no great importance to understand them, you are running a great risk of missing the kingdom of God.

Jesus is giving us a picture of the Christian life, in which the plow represents the service of God. The Christian enters God’s service; he puts his hand to the plow. He throws the weight of his body upon it to cause it to turn up the soil. He keeps his eye straight ahead to the work he is doing. There must be no backward glances of the eye, no turning of the head, but a constant bending forward of the body, a tight holding of the plow with the hand, and a steadfast eye looking unto Jesus. The apostle forgot the things behind—put them out of mind. He reached forth to those things which are before. Alas, too many are looking back to see if man is giving them any praise, or what they may receive from the world for their service in God’s work, or some bodily comfort, ease, or pleasure. If in your work for Christ, you are taking any thought about what recompense you are going to receive and what help the world is going to give, you are not fit for the work of God. You say that your work is a faith work, but you are telling everybody that it is a faith work. If it is a faith work, have it to yourself alone, and go on with your work. To follow Jesus is to fully depend upon Him. He can and will furnish you with all you need in His work, if you are diligently attending to His work, but if you are casting your eye around upon man to see where some help is coming from, you are unfitting yourself for the service of God.

Jesus said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”* (John 6:38) And He kept looking straight forward to the Father’s will. The devil could never cause Him to look back. Though Jesus was tempted with everything from a loaf of bread to the kingdoms of the world, yet He saw nothing but His Father’s will. He could turn water into wine for others, and increase a few loaves and fishes to be enough to feed thousands, but never an act for Himself solely for His own sake. Here is a hard saying, but we will say it in Jesus’ name: we are to do nothing for self’s sake. Alas, how many of the Lord’s own are living too thoughtlessly of God’s will. They eat, they drink, they sleep, they go about the regular routine of life without a thought of God’s will. If we will practice going to our meals, our beds, our work in the thought of doing the will of God, we will find the love of God increasing in our hearts, and life will be sweeter and Christ will be more real to us.

To be a true follower of Jesus the thought of doing His will must absorb every other thought. There is to be not only a perfect denial of self, but there must be a concentration of all our powers in doing His will. To do God’s will from the heart is no cold and indifferent heartedness. We do want to impress this upon your mind, therefore we repeat our warning against thoughtlessness, carelessness, and coldness. Learn to do things purposely for God. Take thought about it. Throw your heart into it with an earnestness. Learn to love God’s will and cling to it purposely. Do not go along day after day in a common routine of life and have no particular thought of God.

“Remember Lot’s wife.”* (Luke 17:32) When brought out of Sodom and ordered to flee, they were forbidden to look back. Surely this will deeply impress your mind.

“I have left all the world to follow Jesus,
Never backward to its follies will I turn;
Oh, I’m on my upward way,
And it’s brighter every day,
For I’ve left all the world to follow Jesus.”*

Mrs. Lot’s offense was only a look. But that look unfitted her for a place in God’s kingdom. Her fate should teach us a lesson. If we look back we are not fit for the kingdom of heaven.

It is possible to be deceived. We may sing—

“We are dead to the world and its pleasure,
Our affections are centered above”*—

and yet we may have our minds largely filled with thoughts of earthly things. We recently read of a minister who says that he has many heartaches because he has been given but little money in the past few months, and has had to live on dry bread and flour gravy. Another says that he has spent many a restless night because his congregation has not kept their agreement with him. And yet they sing that they are dead to the world and its worries.

To be dead to the world with Christ is to have no expectations from it, to be under no bondage to it, to be unworried by it—simply to take no thought about it. None of its circumstances could stop Paul from singing praise to God. No state this world could bring him into brought him any discontent. Peter slept soundly in the face of the chopping block. “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls,”* (Habakkuk 3:17-18) yet the prophet would rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of his salvation. Blessed experience. It is for every child of God. Their life is hid with Christ in God, and nothing of this world can disturb that life without disturbing the life of Jesus.