FOLLOW ME
"And He said to them, 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.'" Matthew 4:19.
Jesus spoke to men He found with their nets and fishing boats on the shore of lake Galilee. So magnetic was His call that the men immediately left all their possessions and followed Him.
Their actions are impressive. Imagine today someone finding you at work and saying to you, "Get up from your desk or your shovel or your vacuum cleaner and follow Me." Jesus didn't say He'd come back in a week for their answer. It was then or never! And, amazingly, they dropped everything and followed!
Hebrews 3:7-8 quotes Psalm 95 when it says,
"Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness."
Human nature is so prone to putting off decisions until tomorrow.
"Let me think it over."
"I'll check with my spouse."
"I want to sleep on it."
And when tomorrow arrives, the call, the desire to follow has given way to going back to work, to doing what you always have done. It's the same old same old, still trapped in sin.
Paul wrote in another place:
"Behold, now is the 'acceptable time,' behold, now is 'the day of salvation---'" II Corinthians 6:2.
Yesterday is gone forever. Tomorrow may never come. We only have TODAY. God's call yesterday is passed. His voice today urges you to take His offer of salvation from your sins' condemmnation and penalty, and to receive new, eternal life in Jesus, His beloved Son.
The writer of Hebrews further says that, "If you hear His voice..." When you feel that nudge, that urge, that compulsion to fall at God's feet in repentance, do not push it aside for later. Later is not NOW. Later, you may not hear God's voice. You're assured only of right now. You must act on the call while it is fresh in your hearing.
Yes, when you follow Jesus, it may cost you your family or business relationships. It may cost you your income, your house, your marriage. It will revise your goals for life. But you will become a fisher of men.
Look at what happened to those fishermen who said "Yes" to Jesus and followed Him the day of His call. The book of Acts puts forth the times and places they won hundreds and thousands of other lost men and women to Jesus Christ for salvation. Miracles of healing happened. Diabolical powers were shredded. The power of God's Holy Spirit infused all that they said and did.
What if they had not obeyed Jesus' call that fishing day? What if they had put off answering His call? It's a sure fact we wouldn't be talking about all their marvelous deeds now, because the Gospel would not have been taken to the four courners of the earth by them and we would not have heard it.
At the time they were called, they had no idea how far reaching that call on their lives would extend. Neither do we. We don't and cannot see how far and how seriously our influence for Jesus will take us. Nor can we see the loss and degradation in other peoples' lives if we fail to answer Jesus' call to us NOW.
TODAY Jesus is calling YOU! Yes, He means it's for keeps. Yes, it means that everything in you and in your life will be changed.
He has called. The answer is up to you. Say "YES."