Recently I have been reading the passages of scripture that describe the calling of Jesus disciples. The one thing I noticed is that when they were called they didn’t fit Jesus into their lives, they changed their lives for Jesus. When Jesus called James and John they left their fathers business and followed Jesus immediately after he called out to them. When Jesus invited Peter and Andrew to follow him they left their fishing nets and followed him. They left their livelihood, their families, their security, their way of living and followed him with only the shirts on their backs and ambition in their hearts. That was it. No packing, no long goodbyes, no two week notice, they simply received the call and answered it. When Jesus called Matthew to follow him he responded the same way.
“9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.” Matthew 9:9
Why is it that somehow we think that this has changed? Now we seem to just add Jesus to our already overcrowded life instead of giving our life to Jesus. Is this biblical? I don’t think so. I think that when Jesus calls us to follow Him he wants us to give him everything. This means that we need to die to ourselves in order to live for him. After all, isn’t that what baptism signifies? When we get baptized we are saying that we have died to ourselves and are new in Christ. If this is true then why don’t we live like it? I think it’s because we simply add Jesus to our lives instead of giving our lives to Jesus.
Think about your commitment to Christ. Have you just added him to your life or have you given your life to him? I recently took a personal inventory and felt that I needed to make some personal changes to make sure that I have given everything to Jesus, again. Maybe you need to do the same thing. Think about it and see what God lays on your heart.