The Seven Calls of the Lord Jesus Christ
The Fourth Call: Follow Me!
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All the Bible verses quoted in this article are from the King James Version.
The Fourth Call: Follow Me!
Taking up the Lord’s yoke and learning from Him is the willingness to become like Him. Becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ is *God’s intention for His people. Romans 8:29 says:
“For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
To make that willingness a concrete action in our lives, we must walk in His footsteps. Therefore, the next call is “Follow Me!”
Following the Lord is not about Him leading and us following behind to a literal destination; it’s about living a life completely obedient to every teaching of the Lord. This means that all our desires, thoughts, words, and actions are based entirely on the teachings of the Lord. Indeed, the Lord instructed His disciples to teach new disciples everything He had commanded. One of the titles of the Lord is “the Word,” meaning “the Word of God,” indicating that He transmitted everything that *God wanted to communicate to humanity. Therefore, everything that the Lord has taught those who follow Him is all that is recorded in the Scriptures, including both the Old and New Testaments.
The Holy Spirit inspired Moses to say in the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ reiterated in the New Testament: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). Therefore, using the Word of God as the foundation for all activities is essential for the people of God. The Word of God is the will of God. Living according to the Word of God means living according to God.
To be able to follow the Lord, which means to live according to every teaching of God, we must pay the price. The price to be paid is determined by the Lord Himself, including abandoning oneself, enduring suffering for the sake of God’s name, and not putting loved ones and all means of livelihood before God.
1. Renounce oneself, daily carrying one’s cross and following the Lord (Matthew 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27).
2. Hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, and one’s own life (Matthew 10:37; 19:29; Mark 10:29; Luke 14:26; 18:29-30).
Renouncing oneself means no longer living for oneself but living for the Lord, living in and for the Lord. Hating one’s relatives and one’s own life means not loving them and one’s own life more than God. The word “hate” here is used in the sense of loving less, as Jacob loved Leah less than Rachel (Genesis 29:30-31).
“For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:7-8).
Living for the Lord means living to fulfill His will and honor Him. Living by the Lord means living by His Word. Living in the Lord means living to enjoy His love and power.
We can only live for the Lord, live by the Lord, and live in the Lord when we forsake ourselves. As long as we live to fulfill our own desires, live to honor ourselves, and live to enjoy what we produce, we have not forsaken ourselves. When we forsake ourselves, we will have the Lord Himself and His inheritance. The following parable helps us understand the meaning and consequences of forsaking ourselves to live for the Lord, live for the Lord, and live in the Lord.
There was a poor man working for a wealthy man. The wealthy man treated the poor man very kindly and generously, while the poor man always put the interests of his employer above all else. One day, the child of the poor man fell seriously ill, but he still went to his employer’s house to complete his work. In the afternoon, when he returned home, his wife informed him that their employer had taken their child to the best hospital and covered all the expenses for the treatment.
*God knows all the needs in our lives. He is faithful and will surely provide all our needs in life when we come to Him, seeking His kingdom and His righteousness. When we forsake ourselves to follow the Lord, that is, to live according to all His teachings recorded in the Scriptures, we will receive more than what we have forsaken, both in this life and in the life to come.
Not only must we forsake ourselves, but we must also daily carry our cross and follow the Lord. The cross always symbolizes shame, pain, and death. When the cross is applied to the Lord or to the people of God, it symbolizes unjust shame, pain, and death. The Lord Jesus was condemned, humiliated, tortured, and unjustly executed, but that was the price He paid to redeem humanity. The people of God will also be condemned, humiliated, tortured, and unjustly executed because of their faith in God, because they follow the Lord Jesus, and because they preach His salvation to the world. And the people of God must endure this every day.
The next price a person must pay to follow the Lord is to sacrifice affection for loved ones and to sacrifice all means of living, even one’s own life, for the sake of the Lord. The term “hate” in the verse, “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26), means “love less.” The meaning of the Lord’s words is: “If anyone comes to Me and does not love Me more than his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and does not love Me more than his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”
Part of the duty of God’s people towards humanity is to honor their parents, take care of their families, love others as themselves, and love their enemies. Therefore, it cannot be a matter of literally hating one’s family.
The Lord teaches us not to prioritize love for our relatives over our love for Him. When necessary, we must sacrifice affection for our loved ones in order to live according to the Word of God. We cannot obey the will of our relatives to oppose the will of God. We cannot violate *God’s commandments out of love for our relatives. Nor can we forsake the name of God or our faith in Him in order to protect our loved ones.
“Hating one’s own life” means not loving one’s livelihood and even one’s own life more than God. From professional careers to manual labor, these are all means of livelihood that God’s people use to support themselves and their families. When necessary, we must be willing to forsake our means of livelihood in order to live according to the Word of God. Even if doing so may result in material loss or even the loss of our means of livelihood, a typical example is refraining from working for a living on Sabbath. Above all, we cannot forsake the name of God, our faith in Him, or commit transgressions against His commandments simply to preserve our own lives.
Today, many people claim to be children of God, but they love the sinful pleasures of the flesh more than they love God. They follow the sinful pleasures of the flesh instead of following the Lord. These sinful pleasures of the flesh can be obsessions with money, power, fame, or sexual immorality. In reality, such individuals have not truly repented and detested their sins. They may intellectually acknowledge their lost state in sin, believe in the redemption of Christ, and feel the love of *God, but they do not truly repent because their hearts still cling to sin. They continue to place themselves in environments of temptation and persist in sinning. Over time, these individuals will become hardened in conscience no longer be able to repent, as they will no longer perceive their actions as sinful. The devil will teach them all kinds of arguments to justify their sins while continuing to set traps to ensnare them in sin.
These individuals may well be famous for preaching the Word of God, spreading the Gospel, and leading many to salvation. But because they do not know how to discipline their bodies to bring them into subjection,” they “preached to others, but they themselves will be castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27). These individuals mistakenly believe that they will be saved and enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Lord will say to them:
“…I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:23)!
Those who know the Lord but still live in sin, yet perform various deeds in the name of the Lord, are considered by the Lord as evildoers; He does not know them.
Let us carefully examine our hearts and pray for the Holy Spirit to help us search our hearts. King David once pleaded:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24).
Under the light of the truth of the Word of God, illuminated by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we will see the hidden sins within us, so that we may repent and confess before the Lord. Only then can we truly forsake ourselves, daily carrying our cross to follow the Lord.
We need to follow the example of the Apostle Paul, considering everything we gain in this life as something we are willing to lose and disregarding it so that we may gain Christ.
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:8).
The price we must pay today to live according to every word of God’s command, even if it leads us to become materially poor, lose our reputation, status, and power in society, but surely, the Lord will restore to us a hundredfold, in this life and in the life to come. This does not mean that if we lose one house, the Lord will give us a hundred other houses, or if we lose a certain position, the Lord will give us a hundred other positions. The Lord does not mean a hundredfold in quantity, but rather in quality! As someone once said, “Better to be a citizen of a free nation than a king of a slave nation!”
Because the blessings from the Lord will happen in this life, we will witness the fulfillment of God’s promise when we forsake ourselves and all that belongs to us to follow the Lord!
Timothy Christian Huynh
Priscilla Christian Huynh
04/19/2014
