Following Jesus

Following Jesus means I allow nothing to come between us- not even His call on my life.  It may not make sense but we are so very religious at times and don't even know it.  I find myself following Him on a path that to my common sense seems to be leading me further and further away from doing what I know I have been called to and have always known.  Yet I know with absolute certainty that this is the path He has chosen for me today.  Think of how many ministers today are working for God yet in reality know little of His heart, little of being truly intimate with Him.  Their God is the calling on their life,  their ministry,  not Him.  The call of God is not the same as God himself but so many have this confused.  The call of God is always to Himself first,  unfortunately after 28 years as a Christian I have seen over and over again ministers who equate the call of God with God and they are not the same.   

Fathers Busines

I will bring the blind by a way they did not know. I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight.  These things I will do for them and not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16

August of 2013  It is a bittersweet day for me knowing that I am stepping into a new season, knowing it is Gods doing yet struggling with letting go of the past, letting go of what is familiar and at one time safe.  Stepping out of our comfort zone isn't easy even when we are sure it is God that is prodding us to move on.  We are likened to sheep in scripture for a reason.  Just as sheep have to be herded to other pastures to graze because where they have been grazing has become bare, so Jesus our Shepherd has to prod us on to greener pastures because just like sheep we would continue to graze in a pasture that can no longer sustain us. 

Letting go of the life I have known for 12 years of being in business with my husband has been a process that actually began last year. Having a home office afforded me a lot of control over my schedule making it easier to tend to my responsibilities as a wife and mother. As any woman knows who has had being a wife and mother a major part of her identity, letting go of that isn't easy especially if it is a role in which you were satisfied and fulfilled.  To me this is really what dying to self is about, not all the religious stuff it has come to be known as.  No matter how uncomfortable we may feel about what we have to do, when we are being led by the Spirit we have that witness on the inside that lets us know it is God who is leading us and not something we are doing on our own.  How grateful I am for this for I have to say there were days I think I would have turned back had I not had that witness.  It is so much easier to discern the Spirits leading when we walk in a place of intimacy with the Lord that has brought our soul into submission to our spirit.

I must be about my Fathers business and for that reason I go forth, not because of money, but because of souls.  Because of the hearts He desires to gather to himself.  Time is so very short. 

I have been so very blessed to have been able to sit at the feet of the Lord, to stand with him on the mount of transfiguration changing my perception of Him in my own heart thereby bringing about my own transformation. We read in the last chapter of Matthew that after Jesus had risen that the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.  It is interesting to note that the definition of Galilee is 'heathen circle'.  Jesus had told the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received the Promise of the Father, that being the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I waited as the Lord instructed me also, waiting through circumstances that screamed at me to go forth before it was Gods time but it is the Lord we must yield to not our circumstances, our feelings or even our reasoning and logic.  I have learned over the years these things are often contrary to the instruction of the Lord, which is why His peace is so important for us because it does not depend on anything in the natural realm, just His presence.  

Follow Me

     So much of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life. We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and all our false loves, and we venture forth in our hearts to trace the steps of the One who said, "Follow me." Excerpt from the book Sacred Romance pg 149. Italics, mine.
 

     Follow me…..this is the call of the Lord, It isn’t about where He is going as it is about who it is we are following. But beware, any doubt we have of His intentions towards us will render us incapable of following Him. Jesus  said, “If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me". To be sure, it is only in denying our self and taking up our cross that we are enabled to follow Him.

Psalm 51:6 behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

     Jesus is the truth and we can only walk with Him to the degree we are willing to walk in truth, not lies or deceptions we have embraced as truth. Sometimes that will mean that He has to expose through His presence the lies we are holding on to, often places that have become comfortable and familiar even though the reality is, they are a source of death and not life.
 

     There are times when Jesus says to us, “follow me” but where He is going isn’t really a place we want to go, unless our desire to be with Him exceeds our desire to stay away from the place in our heart He is headed. But how often upon hearing those words follow me does our mind go to a place that is physical, a place that is external outside of our self? The idea that following Jesus means being a missionary in Africa (though for some that might be the case) or you think of some situation or circumstance you have been avoiding, when all the while Jesus is going to a place in your heart that is keeping you from experiencing the life He died to give you.

 

     Being in a place recently where it seemed I couldn’t find Him (can you relate?) is the reason this meant so much to me. I couldn’t find Him because where He was I didn’t even realize existed, let alone embrace going there with enthusiasm. Then in my desperation to find Him I was open to  where He was, even if it wasn’t a place I particularly wanted to go. I understood that if I wanted to find Him then I would have to go where He was and quit looking for Him where I wanted Him to be. Isn’t that usually the case? It is a mistake I seem to make more often than I care to admit, but eventually I figure it out.

     For me it was a place in my heart where some emotional debris had floated ashore after years of being gone or so I thought. It is amazing how a storm can bring something back to the shore of our hearts that we thought no longer existed.