The Cost of Following Jesus
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Version: RSV
Matthew 8:18-22
18. Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19. And a scribe came up and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." 20. And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." 21. Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 22. But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead."
1 Thessalonians 5:16 - 18 MSG
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
It may not seem at first glance that these two scripture go together! But I came upon Matthew first and then when I opened my subscription scripture service e-mail I discovered the second scripture. Both address a way of life that is counter to what the world considers correct, or normal, don’t they?
Choosing to follow Jesus means that we will roam the earth, never feeling settled or “comfortable” with our work of discipleship. We will always feel as if we have more to do, and to do more, better. We will feel like aliens, even among our neighbors and our friends if we choose the “high road.” Jesus didn’t “belong” on this earth. And He was trying to explain that once we become one with Him, we won’t either. Once we belong to Him, heaven becomes our home, and this world we live on in our bodies, is only the road to our destination.
Beyond living as aliens and foreigners, we are commanded in Thessalonians to be cheerful no matter what. That doesn’t mean “put on a happy face” and pretend everything is great in our lives. Rather it means that we are to be grateful and joyful at being recipients of God’s grace through His Son. We are to thank God in every circumstance, because we know He loves us and wants good for us.
God wants us to “live like we’re saved!” It’s not usually easy to do that! We often have “earthly” tasks we feel compelled to complete before we act on our faith—before we call a friend who has been going through a hard time, just to chat; or before we go to visit an elderly neighbor whose family has moved to another state; or before we spend an hour at the food bank helping to distribute groceries to poor families. We have laundry to do, and soccer games to attend, and meetings at church, and bills to pay, and dinner to fix and a golf game to finish, and the list goes on and on!
We are not to shun our responsibilities, or neglect our friends, or stop doing the things we need to do, but we are to be sure we have our priorities in order, and our to do list arranged properly, and our lives focused on our real purpose. God must be at the center of it all. We are to live our lives in light of the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
When we do that, we can’t go wrong! Let the spiritually dead live like the others “of the world.” As Christians we are to live “in the world” with our eyes set on heaven and our hearts set on Christ.
I hope you spend today cheerfully following Jesus, wherever He leads you.
Mary
