Followers of Jesus

Followers of Jesus Christ have many things in common.  But there are two things that really stand out.  The first thing that we share is the keen awareness of our guilt.  It is not uncommon for our prayers to be filled with, “Lord, forgive me!”  “Lord, have mercy on me!”  “Lord, I’m sorry!”  “Lord, I’m sorry for my life.”

As we cry out to the Lord, we often find our selves in the position or posture of kneeling or laying flat on our faces before Him.  I think that this is normal because we are in fact, guilty.  When we follow Jesus we fail.  When we try to keep in step with Jesus we stumble and fall.  When we try to imitate Jesus, we fall short of God’s expectations.  Our feelings of guilt and sorrow are justified.

However, if this is the sum total of our Christian experience, we’ve either taken our eyes off of Jesus or stopped following Him.  In either case, we need to take our eyes off of ourselves and look up to Jesus on the cross and behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.

The result of following Jesus is fullness of joy which overflows out of a heart of gratitude.  Our lips should shout of His goodness and our hearts should be filled with Thanksgiving.  Our voices should declare and sing with the hymnist who writes:

I stand amazed in the Presence

Of Jesus the Nazarene,

And wonder how He could love me,

A sinner, condemned unclean.

O how marvelous!

O how wonderful!

And my song shall ever be:

O how marvelous!

O how wonderful!

Is my Savior’s love for me!