Some of us, perhaps many, who would consider ourselves Christians, actually ‘follow’ Jesus from a considerable distance.
In His earthly ministry, the various and dramatic healings by Jesus as well as His bold and even shocking teachings quickly attracted growing crowds of followers. His feeding of the five thousand recorded in Mark 6:30-44 and of the four thousand in Matt 15:29-39 are indicative of the many in Israel who were initially followers of Jesus. For some, perhaps following Jesus around was entertaining-‘what will this Nazarene do next?’ For others, perhaps a years long wait, a longing/yearning for the Messiah prompted their excited: “could this Jesus be the one to deliver us from the oppression of Rome and restore the throne of King David”? Some sought Jesus on their own behalf or on behalf of others, to be delivered from some physical malady or astonishingly, even death [Luke 5:17-39;Luke 7:11-15, Luke 8:41-48, John 11:1-44].
For a time Jesus achieved celebrity status, even without YouTube or other forms of media-just word of mouth. But He knew the hearts of people-and He knows your heart and mine:
“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in His name [identifying themselves with Him] after seeing His signs [attesting miracles] which He was doing. But Jesus, for His part, did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people [and understood the superficiality and fickleness of human nature], and He did not need anyone to testify concerning man [and human nature], for He Himself knew what was in man [in their hearts-in the very core of their being]” [John 2:23-25 AMP]. Jesus knew then and knows now that we are fickle, comfort-seeking creatures, always guarding our fear-or-pride-filled hearts, looking for opportunities to either hide from God, or others, or boldly seeking to hear the praise of man, and maneuvering like a child, a ‘look at me, notice me!!, as we go about gathering our earthly achievements and ‘toys’.
Jesus taught thousands but He only trained twelve, and the majority of the multitudes melted away when He spoke some hard truths regarding who He really was and what it really meant to follow Him [John 6:41-66].
Perhaps in the past and even today, many of us, especially those living in the U.S., who claimed to follow Jesus were motivated by a ‘life will go better for me, if I tip my hat to God, or show others that I am a good sort of fellow who is a Christian who is more or less trying to follow Jesus…..even if from a distance. After all, if I get too close to Him, I might get roped into some fanatical lifestyle and only God knows where that might lead’. Indeed there is ‘safety’ in keeping your distance from Jesus, at least so we think. As long as our lives seem reasonably pleasant, reasonably peaceful, reasonably pleasurable, and we are able to maintain our veneer of being a good sort of person, why would we risk rocking the boat with a determined decision to move closer to Jesus-to take Him and His teaching seriously for a change and jettison this thin veneer we maintain, supposedly evidencing we are truly His followers-as we trail far behind Him on the dusty road of life.
May I suggest we ‘pick up the pace’ in our follow-ship of Jesus, and drop our mask. The only ‘contagion’ we could ever catch from Him is a grace-filled heart that will change our life forever. Keeping a ‘safe distance’ is a good automotive driving rule, but not when it comes to following the Master. I spent too many years trying to follow Him from a ‘safe distance’. He knows our hearts. Are you, am I, still following the Lord from a safe distance? Can we continue to do so and still call Him Lord?
“Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say” [Luke 6:46]
CJS
As a consertative person my thoughts tend to want to check ” IT ” out first to see what its all about, then take action, ‘follow close’or hold back! What I don’t fully understand is why
believing Christ’s promises in full is at times so difficult for me when He has done the most for me and still does!
Another practical blog, Counselor Shacklett… Peter has often been criticized for following Jesus during His passion from a safe distance, or so he thought. As we all know, he fell hard. But, at least he followed Jesus, which most of his group did not. Might he have fallen harder and further if he had not followed at all? What if his fellow apostles had followed from a safe distance rather than melting into the shadows? Maybe they would have been able to “right their ship” earlier. I want my safe distance to be transformed to, as you have written, “a grace-filled heart” distance.
Thank you Dr. Charles for your comment; very good thoughts about Peter following from a ‘safe distance’, and understandably so when he was likely overcome with fear for his own safety. It seems for many of us our ‘devotion’/loyalty to the Lord is rather fragile and we are often intimidated by those are are oppositional to Jesus, and thus we may not want our ‘follow-ship’ of Him to perhaps be too obvious to others.
I find your blog very easy to relate to today. I am a believer and have been working on deepening my walk with God. I find I want to do it on my terms though. Basically I want to follow him, but fully trusting him and saying I’ll do whatever he wants me to do – I struggle fully commuting to that. I can say I trust him for today and mean it, but going forward and giving him my total trust – I’m not there yet. My thoughts start going to what if he asked me to do things that I would view , like you said as fanatical. I know rationally these the possibility of this happening is remote- but it makes me hold back. So right now I am trusting God for today and believing he will show me his way going forward to trust him for tomorrow.
Carol: thank you so much for your comment. I so appreciate your honesty in sharing your own journey. I think for many if not most of us our moving ‘closer’ in our follow-ship of Jesus is a gradual life journey. Some of his followers seem to have moved close to Him immediately upon deciding to believe in Him in a personal way and choosing to follow Him, whereas others of us, our journey turns out to be a slower somewhat timid ‘creeping’ closer to Him day by day. The outcome of drawing closer is the goal, even if the ‘speed’ is not very fast. Heb 4:15-16