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Follow Jesus

What it Means to Follow Jesus

Our relationship with Jesus Christ is not earned by our merits, good deeds, worship, proper behavior, attendance at church, personal morality, public service, or anything of human origin. These important byproducts of our relationship with God are secondary to God’s salvation—His rescue of us through Jesus Christ.

God has spoken to us, acted for us, and through Jesus Christ, God has come to our rescue. God then challenges us to respond to these actions by accepting His offer of rescue.

God Has Spoken

Through creation and the Bible, God speaks and acts in history and has a purpose and love for all humanity. But all too often we choose to reject God’s love and authority, choosing instead to live for ourselves. The Bible calls this behavior “sin.”

God Has Acted

God is not passive in the face of our rebellion and separation. Instead, God has lovingly taken the initiative to reach toward us, to communicate to us, and to rescue us from the sin of which all of us are guilty.

  • God created human beings with the unique ability to perceive God’s imprint on themselves and the world, and the freedom to adore or ignore God.
  • God revealed His nature and purpose to Abraham and Sarah, promising them that through their lineage God would bless the entire world.
  • God inspired prophets to communicate God’s nature and desires to all those who would listen. Often ignored or reviled by their hearers, the prophets told of God’s tender concern for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner. The prophets also told of the coming Savior and Redeemer who one day would rescue God’s people from their greatest enemies.
  • Most important of all, in the ultimate plan to reach toward us, God became human, a Jewish baby named Jesus of Nazareth who grew to become a carpenter/rabbi. Indeed the entire unfolding story of the Old Testament points the way to Jesus.

God Has Come to Our Rescue

Every human being ever born has made mistakes, had moral lapses, and in a variety of ways fallen short of the holy perfection of God Almighty except one, Jesus Christ.

  • Jesus declared Himself to be God. He claimed that He was the One toward whom all the biblical prophets pointed. He taught that our relationship with Him was more important than all other relationships. He claimed that He was the only avenue for humans to come to God, and that at the world’s end He would judge all people.
  • Jesus reached out with great compassion to those who were the lowest and most shunned in society.
  • Jesus healed people miraculously; while He claimed to be the source of all true healing.
  • After living a life without sin, in perfect obedience to God the Father, Jesus chose to die on behalf of the rest of humanity. He freely chose to die to rescue us.
  • He claimed that anyone who trusts in His rescue is given a new relationship with God as an adopted child of God. He promised too that God’s Spirit would to reside in that person, leading, comforting, encouraging and empowering that person in daily life.
  • Three days after His death on the cross, Jesus was raised to eternal life, never again to die.

Who Jesus is and what He did for us form the foundation on which the Christian faith is built. His claim to be God, His work to die for sin and His resurrection from the dead are key underpinnings of Christian belief and practice.

Our Response

God invites our personal, individual, grateful response to His saving work. God challenges each person to accept the gift that Jesus offers. This invitation brings both great responsibility and great comfort. The responsibility is that each of us is held accountable for our response. The great comfort is that once the response is given, the person can be fully assured that God has received that person as a beloved child, safe and secure in God’s love, forgiveness and acceptance for now and all eternity.

This response includes three steps:

  • “I’m sorry …” — ask God to forgive you for the things you have done wrong, the ways you have pushed God away.
  • “Thank you …” — believe that Jesus died on the cross so you could be rescued by God and adopted as God’s beloved child; thank him for this undeserved gift.
  • “Please …” — accept God’s gift, invite God to live within you to help you turn from your old way of living to a life committed to pleasing God.

Here is a very simple prayer, to begin the most wonderful relationship of your life:

 Jesus,

I’m sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me for all the things that have come between us. I now turn away from everything that I know is wrong. Thank you that you died on the cross to rescue me from my sin and everything that keeps me from fully knowing and serving you. Please come into my life, and live with me forever.

Thank you. Amen.

 

If you have responded to God’s love and rescue with this kind of response, then you are a beloved child of God — a Christian! And Jesus further calls us to live out that faith by becoming more like Him and helping others know Him. Living to make Jesus visible means alerting everyone, in our words and our actions, to God’s reign through his Son Jesus.

If you have any questions about following Jesus or would like someone to pray with you, please contact us. First Presbyterian Church San Antonio welcomes you wherever you are on your journey of faith — a seeker, a skeptic, a new Christian, or a long-time Christian.

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