What are You Seeking?
Happy new week Steemit, trust you are doing just great.
Remain blessed as you read through:
Why do we follow Christ? What are we looking for? As the attitude towards Christians begins to shift, those who follow Christ for their own benefit will be sifted out from the true believers.
As time marches ever closer to Jesus’ second coming, we are seeing more and more resentment and persecution against the Church. This should not surprise us. Jesus clearly told us that “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27)
It’s easy to be a Christian if being a Christian means we can ‘name our desires and claim them’. That; however, is not the Christianity that Jesus taught. It is not the reality that God promised. Will God provide for our needs? Absolutely! Does He delight in going above and beyond our expectations? Yes! In her book, Evidence Not Seen, Darlene Deibler Rose, speaks about her time in a prison camp in the jungles of New Guinea during World War II.
After being starved and beaten, she begins to pray for God to give her a banana. After her prayer, she thinks of all the people who might be able to bring her such a treat and then contemplates the punishment they would receive by doing so. Convinced that her request was too dangerous and too selfish, she then tells God to forget her prayer and help her deal with her hunger.
God does not ignore her request; however, nor does He reject it as selfish. Instead, He brings the very men who beat her to her cell with, not one but, 95 bananas… 95! This is why Ephesians 3:20-21 says: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Follow Christ, not for what you can receive, but because he is true. Obey God, not for what He can give you, but because He is God of the universe. God has no patience for ‘fair weather followers’ (Rev 3:16). He is more than able to supply all our needs, but that is not why we follow Him. Being a Christian means we are completely in love, devoted to, and obedient to our Savior. We follow because nothing else compares. We follow because He leads to the only true way. Ask yourself why you follow Jesus and if you will still follow when the road gets rough and the cross you are asked to carry gets hard.
Shalom