What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Following Christ can take your life. I don’t believe most people, including myself, truly recognize the true meaning of being a disciple. It sounds almost easy to follow Jesus, and too simple to be the way to everlasting life. Its actually very difficult, but that is because we make it that way. The end result ( salvation, peace, no more worries or fears about tomorrow, everlasting joy, security, freedom) is so rewarding that the difficulties are forgotten.
We are so attached to material things that when Jesus says to leave EVERYTHING and follow him, most of us can’t help but cling on to our securities and familiar way of life. There was an example I heard once of something similar to this. “ You are a rocket, and you take off and break through the atmosphere. It is now time for the actual spaceship (you) to detach itself from what launched you there. For some reason you can’t let it go… it’s too important to you. Without it you couldn’t have gotten this high up. Now your somewhere unknown and you don’t want to let go! You realize that if you don’t let go soon all the calculations will be messed up and you will delay your orbit (which is God’s mission for you to follow)”. We need to let go just as Jesus commanded. This is an example of how things can really prevent you or distract you from following Jesus. Clinging to the past is dangerous. It scares people to drastically change their life style so they want to stay near to what they know.
I don’t believe that we actually have to give up everything literally to follow him. I do believe though that we can’t allow ourselves to grow attached to these things and that we have to detach ourselves from distractions in a spiritual sense. We don’t need to give up everything but that doesn’t mean that we should then have everything. These material things won’t be so important to us and won’t be holding us back any longer. It will actually make following Jesus easier!! That is why he says give up your possessions to the rich man. He knows that the man clings to his possessions, so by getting rid of it he can give everything to Jesus. Jesus is personally and directly telling the man what he has to fix in his life. And the man doesn’t listen! I would give so much just to have Jesus tell me exactly what I need to get rid of to follow him wholeheartedly.
So what does it mean to follow Jesus? It means that we will be different. It means that not everyone will understand us. It means that now every action you make will reflect your obedience in following Jesus. Like Bonheoffer said, “ Once someone comes to Christ he/she is taken out of a life of relative security into one of absolute insecurity, or so it seems.” He means that we cant see the big picture, and that God can. It seams to us that we are leaving security and entering into an unknown new life. But really we are entering a life more secure and truer than our old one. Like in what the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis implied, when you experience Heaven you look back at earth and see it as Hell. You wonder then how you could have ever wanted to stay there. And how you almost thought twice of following Jesus. I think that in following Jesus we will become braver… we will become more like Him. That’s what it truly means to follow Jesus: To try to be as much like him and just completely trusting in him. We really over complicate things like this. The simple answer is to obey the call of Jesus “ Follow me”.