Follow Me

Jesus never asked anyone to pray the “sinner’s prayer”. He simply said, “Follow Me”. The way He called His Disciples is a good example. The first two, Andrew and probably John, started following Jesus because John the Baptist pointed Him out. Then they shared with others they found the Messiah.

John 1:35-49, ³⁵ The next day John (the Baptist) was there again with two of his disciples. ³⁶ When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

³⁸ Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” ³⁹ “Come,” He replied, “and you will see.” So, they went and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about four in the afternoon.

⁴⁰ Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. ⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). ⁴² And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, He said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, He said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

⁴⁸ “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

What stands out to me is these first five disciples had no hesitation in following Jesus. That is not a normal reaction for people to stop what they are doing and follow someone else. That tells me the Holy Spirit was already working on them prior to their encounter with Jesus. The natural doubt and resistance were not in them. Three days later Jesus and His disciples are invited to a wedding and Jesus begins to show them who He is by turning water into wine.

John 2:1-10, On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to Him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman, why do you involve Me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so, they filled them to the brim.

⁸ Then He told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹ and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

Later Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John to “follow Me”. It is obviously later because in the passage in John 1 they had not met Him yet.

Matthew 4:18-22, ¹⁸ As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹ “Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” ²⁰ At once they left their nets and followed Him.

²¹ Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, ²² and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.

Matthew also was called to follow Jesus as he was setting in his tax booth.

Matthew 9:9, As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow Me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed Him.

It is one thing to be curious and follow someone for a day, but to walk away from your job, the thing you do to feed your family, that is a much greater change. The Holy Spirit guiding their decisions can be the only answer. No one changes their life drastically without life changing input.

Reflecting on my journey from living for myself to following Jesus, I recognize the steps God used to get me to the point of answering His call. I was raised Catholic and went to catechism classes every week until I left home. I believed all the Biblical truths; Jesus is the Son of God, the virgin birth, Jesus’ death, and resurrection, etc. I believed it but it was meaningless to me. These were facts like the facts I learned about history or math.

At 37 I started going to church. The pastor of that church soon invited me to his office and lead me through the sinner’s prayer and told me I was now in God’s family and heaven bound. However, nothing changed in my life. They were words spoken to please a man. I was still a selfish, self-centered person. Within a year of that I was teaching the Junior High youth group and serving on the leadership board of the church, and yet my heart still had not changed.

Two years later I heard the call to follow Jesus. We took our Junior and Senior High students to a regional youth rally in Ohio. In the last session the speaker told a story that God used to call me. The story was about Alexzander the Great’s encounter with a soldier from his army that had run from battle. He asked the soldier his name and he replied, “Alexzander sir, my name is Alexzander”. That infuriated Alexzander the Great, and he stood up, pointed at the young man and yelled, “SOLDIER, CHANGE YOUR CONDUCT OR CHANGE YOUR NAME!”

The speaker paused for a long time and then he said, “You call yourself Christian?” And then he yelled, “CHRISTIAN? CHRISTIAN? CHANGE YOUR CONDUCT OR CHANGE YOUR NAME!” The speaker turned and walked off the stage. You could hear a pin drop in that auditorium. God broke me and I cried. I still get tears in my eyes now 47 years later every time I repeat that story.

The “sinner’s prayer” meant nothing to me, but when God had prepared my heart, He used that speaker’s story to draw me to follow Jesus and He changed my life. He has continued to use His Spirit to refine me all these years. One person cannot lead another to follow Jesus. That is God’s job. All we can do is share what God has done for us and His eternal plan for those that follow Jesus. The change of heart and spiritual ears to hear come from God.