Footsteps
By Belinda
I confess that I have not followed Jesus well to this point in my life. I thought that I had made at least a good attempt, but really I have been far more in step with the culture I live in than with the pattern Jesus lived; and they are both very different. You can read the Bible, as I have, and know it well, but have a sort of blindness to the implications for your own life.
For instance:
19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.
This is a verse that is quite shocking when you think of who Jesus is. Jesus laid down a pattern of humble dependence on God, of not running ahead of God. By contrast, my life is driven by busyness; by plans and goals and deadlines that have been set without any consultation with God. How arrogant, when I contrast this with the way of Jesus.
Here is another example of this same spirit of humility and dependence on God:
John 12:49-50 (New Living Translation)
In the first example Jesus says that he does whatever he sees the Father doing and in the second, he says whatever the Father tells him to say. How different will my life be if I start out to follow in his footsteps?
John 12:49-50 speaks to his commands leading to "eternal life." But "eternal life" takes on a different meaning when understood as described in this next verse:
I confess that I have not followed Jesus well to this point in my life. I thought that I had made at least a good attempt, but really I have been far more in step with the culture I live in than with the pattern Jesus lived; and they are both very different. You can read the Bible, as I have, and know it well, but have a sort of blindness to the implications for your own life.
For instance:
John 5:19 (New Living Translation)
19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.
This is a verse that is quite shocking when you think of who Jesus is. Jesus laid down a pattern of humble dependence on God, of not running ahead of God. By contrast, my life is driven by busyness; by plans and goals and deadlines that have been set without any consultation with God. How arrogant, when I contrast this with the way of Jesus.
Here is another example of this same spirit of humility and dependence on God:
John 12:49-50 (New Living Translation)
49 I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.”
In the first example Jesus says that he does whatever he sees the Father doing and in the second, he says whatever the Father tells him to say. How different will my life be if I start out to follow in his footsteps?
John 12:49-50 speaks to his commands leading to "eternal life." But "eternal life" takes on a different meaning when understood as described in this next verse:
John 17:3 (Amplified Bible)
3And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent.
So eternal life takes residence within us as we know him. Knowing him I see the gap between my life and his. To follow him means that what he does I must do.
Oswald Chambers, who I have been reading much and meditating on lately, says:
Oswald Chambers, who I have been reading much and meditating on lately, says:
The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere. Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God.
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