Colossians 3:16, Philippians 2:5-7, John 13:34-35, Matthew 11:29, Mark 8:34-35, Luke 9:23
Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own (Stu’s) sermons, as I was trying to help the congregation make a paradigm shift from the church as a building, to the people of God: ...
John 13:14-15, Philippians 2:5-7, Matthew 23:11, James 4:10, Mark 10:45, 1 Peter 5:5-6
In 1878, when William Booth’s Salvation Army was beginning to make its mark, men and women from all over the world began to enlist. One man, who had once dreamed of becoming a bishop, crossed the Atla...
*it is possible this story is apocryphal, we were unable to find the original source of the story. Admiral Nelson of the British Navy was renowned for his mastery of naval strategy, a genius fro...
Holy God–Father, Son and Spirit: We come with our agendas in order to enlist you in our causes but You won’t be co-opted for our small visions. Instead, You hold out a greater vision and purpose and i...
Sisters and brothers, no one can follow Jesus for you or me. That’s something we have to do for ourselves. But when we do, that’s when real life begins. So go out into the world this week, living real...
Loving God, please forgive us of the times when we don’t make it our number one priority to follow you. For the times when we focus too much on things that distract us from you, we repent. We are sorr...
John 13:1-17, John 13:31-35, Luke 22:25-27, Matthew 20:25-28, Mark 10:42-45
Reflection We all are aware of cultures that have a hierarchy—a pecking order. The elite and the hoi polloi. The acceptable and the unacceptable. In such cultures, the hierarchy determines the role. ...
My experience with following indicates that it can be even more difficult than leading. Following requires humility, risk, attention, awareness and guts. It means serving someone else’s agenda and fol...
Luke 9:23, Isaiah 58:11, Psalm 25:4-5, Proverbs 16:9, John 10:27, Matthew 4:19
In her book, Invitations from God, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun shares a great analogy of the difficulty of faithful discipleship: it’s not always easy to follow: Recently I had to follow another car to a ...
Micah 6:8, Exodus 23:2–3, 6, Proverbs 31:8–9, James 2:12–13 , Luke 6:36–37, Psalm 103:8–10
Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...
To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that...
Mark 9:35, Matthew 23:11, Matthew 23:11, Matthew 10:24, Luke 16:13
Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...
Leader: O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, People: the founder and perfecter of our faith, Leader: who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, ...
Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the ‘second mile,’ turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just...
1 Peter 2:21, Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 3:8-9, Revelation 17:14, Luke 9:23, John 10:27, Matthew 16:24
The Gospel is not about choosing to follow advice, it’s about being called to follow a King. Not just someone with the power and authority to tell you what needs to be done—but someone with the power ...
The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself. It is true that he spoke much about the fatherhood of God and the kingdom of God. But then he added ...
1 Timothy 1:9, Romans 8:28, Ephesians 4:4, Luke 9:26, Matthew 9:26, Mark 8:38
Leader: Lord God, you call us but we do not always hear. Sometimes your word comes to us in unexpected ways. Sometimes we mistake your voice for something else. Sometimes we just don’t want to listen....
Jesus cared that they were scared It was their fear that drew Him near He heard their cry He saw that they were terrified So He came close He walked beside He got in He didn’t pass by And He sai...
Loving God, you love us so much that you invite us to a life of transformation. You call us to live outside ourselves, and to follow you more faithfully with each day that passes. We confess to you th...
Abiding is the continually renewed decision that what has been done once for all by the action of Jesus shall be the basis, the starting point, the context for all my thinking and deciding and doing.
Jesus made it fairly simple, at least to start. He said, “Follow me.” The word follow, diluted by our culture, begs for a biblical definition. In English, you can follow the directions (or not); you c...
Pastor: O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, People: the founder and perfecter of our faith, Pastor: who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, ...
A rabbi’s followers, known as his talmidim in Hebrew, went everywhere with him, not just to hang on his every word and learn theology from him. They followed him everywhere so that they could mimic wh...
Imagine Jesus at the beginning of his ministry He calls his first disciples – the educated and advantaged? No. Some fishermen. He travels around his home region of Galilee proclaiming the good news o...
For reading in unison: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied him...
Context This text comes near the midpoint of the Gospel of Mark, and its central narrative position is more than matched by its pivotal thematic content. Jesus has turned from his focus on ministry i...