Who's Following

On this first Lord’s Day Sunday in a new week, feelings, emotions, attitudes and thoughts of all kinds fill us. Believers, men and women of different ages, in different circumstances, aware of the fast approaching Advent Season, begin to feel all kinds of moods and minds. There are feelings of joy, tinged with dots of sadness. In others, there are thoughts of excitement, tempered by feelings of uncertainty and rush. Still, with others, there are words of resolution, punctuated with marks of questioning.

Today begins the second day of the penultimate month of a year that has lived most of its days and is now beginning its closing remarks and works. Today also marks and introduces the first of the quadruplet Sundays, before the First Sunday in Advent. Whatever is your disposition and position at the moment, however the spirit with which you are approaching this coming season, I encourage you to adopt the very attitude of our One Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is the Person we claim to follow, want to follow and seek to follow. 

To truly follow Jesus is to receive all that He promises, as He is not a man that He should lie to anyone. He is Lord and depends on no flesh, no creation for His existence. To follow Jesus in truth and in fact and not nominally and in pretension, is to stand out as His confirming, so that when His true followers are seen, He is glorified.

In this time when all around us are lights on trees, show windows, showrooms and more, inviting us to follow their brand, perhaps we need to hear again these words of Jesus. I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. John 8: 12b. We know, accept and believe that Jesus is the Light of the world. When Jesus made this statement, hundreds of years ago, He was wise and astute in making it a public matter. 

It was not said quietly, in hushed, closed quarters. It was not one of those occasions when He told His people not to speak about Him. We hear Him charging His own not to tell who He is. Then he charged them that they should tell no one about Him, Mark 8: 30. After their most transcending and awesome experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus was transfigured, this is what He told Peter, James and John, as they descended that high ground with Him. He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Mark 9: 9b.

Agreed, there have been occasions when Jesus asked people to be quiet about Him and things concerning Him, but this is not such an occasion, so that we all are able to hear and know that Jesus is the Light of the world. What does Jesus guarantee to all who follow Him? What is His, across-the-board receiving? There are two promises given in bold, big, bright, letters and tones.

Follow Jesus and you will not walk in darkness.  

Follow Jesus and you will have the light of life.

To walk in darkness is totally and completely an outright lie, if that person is following Jesus. Jesus is Light, therefore light is in all who follow Him. How then can a person walk in any kind of darkness at all? I sometimes see riders at night, with a small, but powerful, bright-beam light strapped around their foreheads. Wherever they ride, they are never in darkness, because they carry the light on them, on their person. The same applies to Jesus, Light of the world. Follow Him and you have Him in you, the Light of life. How is it possible to walk in darkness?

Here is the obvious dilemma. Many of us claim to be following Jesus, and are adamant that we are, yet we are walking in darkness of all kinds.

May our Holy, compassionate Father in heaven, save us from all such folly. Amen!

This week, through different angles, twists and turns, we shall pursue how we follow, why we follow and if we follow the Lord’s Word, for He is His Word.