When was the last time you felt an impulse to do something fresh and daring for Jesus, but then you glanced around, thought how strange you might look, and let the desire die?
Sometimes the tug is relatively small: Kneel in corporate worship. Ask a deep question in a superficial conversation. Stop and talk to a stranger.
Other times, you may feel stirred to something bolder: Start a Bible study on your block. Foster a few children. Gather some brothers and try street preaching.
You feel prodded, moved. The impulse begins to feel like a matter of obedience. You come right to the cusp of action. But then you look around and see no one else you know following Jesus like that. And so you don’t either.
I know the feeling. And I wonder if Jesus would tell you and me in these moments what he once told Peter: “What is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:22). You follow me: Take the gifts he’s given you, the opportunities in front of you, the burdens placed upon you, and don’t worry so much about what others are doing or what others might think. Instead, fix your eyes on Jesus and follow him as faithfully as you can.
‘You Follow Me’
Those three simple words — “You follow me” — remind us that Christians are both remarkably similar to one another and also strikingly different.
“You follow me,” Jesus says to us all. We fix our eyes on the same Jesus, the same Lord, who is conforming us into the same image (Romans 8:29). Whoever we are, wherever we come from, we all want to be as much like him as we can.
But when Jesus says, “You follow me,” he really means you — you with your distinct personality, your unique background, your particular gifts, your specific ambitions, your precise circumstances. The call comes to fathers and mothers, singles and spouses, teachers and engineers and artists, the church-raised and the world-raised, with all the fantastic variety that the image of God can hold.
Because Jesus calls us to follow him, we can learn a great deal from those farther along the journey; we ought to imitate those who imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). But because Jesus calls us to follow him, our following will sometimes depart from that of others and may even look strange to some of them. Peter will not go everywhere John goes; John will not do everything Peter does. The eye and the ear both have their place.
In healthy churches, Christians learn much from each other but keep their first and best focus on Jesus himself. They remember that Jesus may bid them to go where others aren’t going, say what others aren’t saying, try what others aren’t trying. They still lean on their community to discern the wisdom of their way, but they keep their eyes locked on the one who often leads his people in different directions. They stay open to surprises.
And when, like Peter, their focus subtly shifts from Christ to his people, and they ask, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus snaps their gaze back to him: “What is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:21–22).
Blandly Predictable
Now, Peter’s situation was not exactly like ours. He did not hesitate to obey because he feared the opinion of others (so far as we can tell). But he did look at the path Jesus laid out for him — pastoring followed by martyrdom (John 21:15–19) — and immediately turned from Jesus to John. What about him? He waited to walk until he knew how his calling compared to his brother’s. Jesus’s response gives us an enduring principle: Let your obedience be defined by the Lord before you, not the disciples beside you.
Some Christians, of course, need little encouragement to depart from the crowd. They already shout, “Amen!” when no one else does and readily strike out on their own. They are John the Baptist’s spiritual children, conspicuous as a camel’s-hair coat. If anything, they would do well to get more advice before acting.
Many more of us, probably, stand on the other side of the river. We blend in too well. We wear various shades of beige from day to day. We follow Jesus only as we see others doing, only in ways that won’t turn heads. We have become blandly, un-Christianly predictable.
Those who hear and heed “You follow me” will, over time, take fresh risks and launch new ventures, whatever their personality. Paul and Barnabas will set sail for new lands. Mark will write the first Gospel. Pastors will plant churches in hard places. The naturally timid will speak brave words. The natively brash will minister to the disabled.
But such adventurous obedience will happen only if “You follow me” holds more weight than what others are doing or what others may think. How many beautiful ideas do we discard too soon because they seem too bold? How many times does a good work die because we look too long at the people around us and too little at the Lord ahead of us? How often have we let the opinions of unbelievers, or even other Christians, steal the salt from our lives?
I’m not suggesting that you start judging your brothers and sisters as disobedient while you embark on the real Christian life. Just because you adopt a child or do door-to-door evangelism doesn’t mean they should. They may be following Jesus exactly as he wants them to. I’m only suggesting that you not let their good works set the boundaries for your own. What if he wants you to do something new in your community?
Follow the Stories
What a sad story church history would tell if God’s people had always limited their obedience to what they could see. Paul would have kept silent in the face of Peter’s hypocrisy. The gospel would have stayed with the Jews. Augustine would have never written his Confessions. Luther would have remained a monk. Wilberforce would have let slavery slide. Whitefield and the Wesleys would have used only their indoor voice.
And what a sad story our own lives would tell. What if the person who shared Jesus with you had not listened when he told them, “You follow me”? What if those who sharpen you most stayed quiet instead of reproving, correcting, pursuing? The brothers and sisters we so admire, the ones who speak and evangelize and sing and pray in ways that jostle and stir us and make us yearn to be Christlike — aren’t they the ones who hear “You follow me” and obey?
So too with our own history of obedience. Haven’t many of our soul’s best moments come on the far side of risk? We dreaded the thought of some hard conversation — but then we spoke, and what good came! We counted the cost and joined a church plant anyway — and how glad we are that we did! Even when our attempts to boldly follow land us flat on our faces, aren’t we often still thankful for how God shapes us in the falling? Better to sink walking on waves than stay seated in the boat.
Following in the First Step
If following Jesus so freely, so gallantly, feels unnatural to you (as it does to me), remember that you already have followed him in this way. All our daily following is, in one sense, a continuation of the first step we took.
Do you remember what happened when Jesus first called you? There you were, maybe in high school or college, perhaps a young parent or an empty nester. You lived among the crowd. But then you heard the voice of Jesus in his word saying, “Follow me.”
Looking up, you probably saw some people you knew following him, but you saw many more — family, friends, classmates, neighbors, coworkers — not following. You were a Nicodemus among Pharisees, a seeker surrounded by unbelief. But you couldn’t shake the voice you heard. His call was too alluring, his glory too compelling. So you looked at the crowd again and said, “What is that to me? I’m following him.”
Today, you often find yourself in the company of those who also follow him. But even now, the Lord who called you by name still holds your first allegiance. At times, he will lead you to say things, do things, risk things that surprise even the Christians around you.
But even if you find yourself out of step for a moment with your brothers and sisters, you will not be out of step with your Lord. For wherever he calls you to follow him, there he is.
Desiring God