Matt 8:14-22. Following Jesus
During one of my hard times of suffering when I was studying at university, married with three children, and scouring the ditches on weekends for cans and bottles for the recycling money to buy snacks for my kids, Jesus called me to faith, called me to follow him. I didnamprsquot want to and fought his call for months, finally giving in on a cold winter day in January. January, the beginning of the year and the start of my long, wavering walk with the Lord.
I donamprsquot understand Peter and Andrew, James and John or any of the twelve disciples who dropped everything, left everything and immediately followed Jesus when he called them. Even though I was desperately poor and full of complaints, and deeply needed Jesus in my life, I did not immediately embrace him, mainly because I didnamprsquot want to be a Christian. There was no logic to it, I said. What could Jesus do for me?
After my conversion, I didnamprsquot ask what Jesus could do for me because the joy he gave me was the answer to my pre-conversion question. Jesus gave me joy. I was free from the burden of a life whose purpose and meaning had vanished with my money. After I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, nothing in my life changed except my attitude. I was still desperately poor but now I could give thanks and suddenly life was easier.
Years passed and like the church in Ephesus I lost my first love of God. Like the church of Laodicea, my faith became lukewarm, my sins grew, and I was back to grumbling about my lot in life. Then, God in his mercy took everything away and I was left with nothing and no one except him. I didnamprsquot want to follow him, though, I wanted to abandon him, but I couldnamprsquot. I couldnamprsquot turn away from him but I couldnamprsquot follow either because life was hard and he wasnamprsquot doing anything for me to alleviate my suffering of emptiness.
Then he gave me a new wife, a foreign wife in a foreign land, and a foreign church, Wooridle Church, where I began to recover, to heal, and to finally learn that God had in fact been serving me by saving me from myself by showing me just what happens when I sinfully serve myself and no one else.
My call to faith was a call to service. I think that deep down I knew that and that was the real reason I didnamprsquot want to follow the Lord. I didnamprsquot want to serve him or others. I was not at all like Peteramprsquos mother-in-law who didnamprsquot even have to ask Jesus to heal her. He knew she was hurting not so much from her fever as her inability to serve the Lord because of her fever. Her healing allowed her to do what she truly wanted, to serve the Lord.
Service comes in many forms. Today was a busy day at work and I usually stay until just before worship to get more things done. As I was settling down for a couple of hours of work, I got a message from a trainee asking for the loan of a book necessary for his training course. The problem was that the book was at my house. I had a choice of saying Sorry, you asked me too late in the day or Sure, Iamprsquoll bring it.
Serve myself or serve Jesus through service to the trainee? No choice, really. Not now. I chose service.
Application: Go home and get the book for the trainee.
Lord, thank you for letting me see that each day thereamprsquos always a chance to serve you. Give me your Spirit always, I pray, to make the choice you want me to make.
