Walking with King Jesus
Many years ago, my life was changed when I began to regularly read the Bible. As a High School Junior, I began to read one of the Gospels. I can't remember which one, but it was transformative. The story of Jesus’ life came alive to me. The strange thing was that I had attended church for most of my life. I had heard many Sunday School lessons, and I participated year after year in VBS. I spent many summers at a Christian camp. Yet, when I read the Bible, it came alive in a way that I had never known. This awakening caused me to ponder the fate of my friends. I was convicted that my friends needed to know Jesus, yet I had no idea how to share the Gospel in an effective way. This conviction ultimately led me to attend Bible College and seek ministry training. While in college I began the process of learning how to point people to Jesus. One would think that this would be an easy proposition and task. While the church can be involved in many activities and programs, the job of leading people to Jesus can be a tricky thing. The reality is that Satan is busy deceiving and distracting all of us. While Satan’s bag of tricks is nearly endless, he has one goal — to lead people away from God.
Over the years, two convictions have undergirded my work. The first conviction is that everything in the call of King Jesus is meant to be lived. It is not enough that we announce and preach the Gospel, we need to live it. It must be lived on the streets and on the job. It must be lived in times of celebration and in the cancer times. Our walk with Jesus takes us anywhere and everywhere. I have been convicted that living for Jesus is more than getting dunked under water or making an announcement before a church crowd (though it does involve that). Living for Jesus is settling in for a lifetime of obedience and dedication to King Jesus.
The second conviction that undergirds my work is that this thing called “discipleship” requires one to get in God’s Word and commit to prayer. I had to learn that I could not form Jesus in the life of another person. That is God’s job. The Holy Spirit in the one who will shape and mold each one of us. My (and your) work is the more modest work of reading God’s Word and sharing it with others so that they can be worked on by our Heavenly Father. My (and your) work is to live a life of prayer so that others see a hint of Jesus. Helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures is a noble calling. Involving ourselves in prayerful lives (and, yes, actually praying for opportunities to share the Gospel with others) is a long and often slow process. Truth be told, I sometimes get tired of this daily grind. I often look for the “magic button” that I can push to make people follow Jesus. But the years have taught me that God is always working and bringing about His perfect and holy agenda. I need to be patient and trust in Him.
If we are serious about following Jesus and living His way, we must realize that it is a daily task. Following Jesus is especially challenging in that we are nearly always swimming against the flow and current of this world. When we surrender to Jesus, we must daily fill our minds with Scripture so as to counteract the subversive, sinful ideology that this world bombards us with. Along with a daily “renewing” of our minds, we must bow before our great God in prayer. Renewing and refreshing our mind and heart is essential for this walk to which we have been called. Scripture and prayer. Prayer and Scripture. To say that these disciplines are essential to walking in the way that God desires might be seen as a bit simplistic. There are many facets of the Christian life that God will reveal to us, but these two are foundational. While Jesus is the basis of our salvation, the walk of discipleship honors God and keeps us grounded in Christ. Keep looking up!