The Caveat

“Follow Me,
and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 4:18-19

“Follow Me and I will make you…” The caveat to the promises of God is that they are conditional on our relationship with Him. To be a fisher of men requires an ardent following of Him. To seek to persuade others by the excellency of speech and other natural abilities is the great failure of religion. All the promises of God are hidden in the person and Life of Christ.

“For as many promises as are of God,
in Him they are yes, and in Him are Amen,
for glory to God through us.”
2 Corinthians 1:20 (LITV)

The key to these great and precious promises for each of us is as simple and yet as profound as our being “IN HIM.”

“IN HIM”

The eternal question to ask ourselves is this: Is there enough of Him shining through us to draw others to His wonder? The disciples certainly had no inherent ability to lure or entice others to Christ. Nor do we. The hope of being a light, His Light, to the world will come as we are following Him, abiding IN Him, and actively being transformed into His likeness.

The Statement

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
I will draw all to Myself.”
John 12:32 (LITV)

Any individual who is following Jesus will, to some degree, “lift” Him up from their earthen vessel; something of His essence and wonder to the lives of those around them. It is impossible to walk with Him and not have an effect upon the world around us.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1

Faith, being the substance of His person and the means of displaying the evidence of things not seen, produces a gravitational pull to Him on those within its sphere. It is the substance or mass of the moon that exerts an unseen attraction upon the Earth. The greater the substance or mass of a heavenly body, the more substantial will be its influence. So too with us.

The Light of Him within will draw the lost, the floundering, to salvation. The Light of Him within will encourage, exhort and admonish all who love Him. The Light of Him within will cause the servants of darkness to hate and to seek by any means to extinguish its effervescence. To follow Him will inevitably result in the experiential reality of these two responses.

“Marvel not, My brethren,
if the world hate you.”

It is into this crucible that His call is arising. To bear His likeness must also bring His reproach. It is a day to consider our calling. This is the hour to examine ourselves as to whether we are IN the faith. Are we at this moment living lives that are “drawing” men and women to Jesus, or are we passing time isolated, indolent, and uninvolved in the “fight of faith”?

“Examine yourselves,
whether you are IN the faith; test yourselves…”
2 Corinthians 13:5

Paul is not speaking of a confession. He is seeking to stir up the believers in Corinth to “examine” whether they are IN the living faith where the weight, the power, and the substance of Christ is pressing them to be an effectual ministration of Christ to the Body of Christ and to the world.

“And if ye call on the Father,
who without respect of persons,
judgeth according to every man’s work,
pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.”
1 Peter 1:17

Eternity is closing fast upon each of us. In the end, we will give an account unto Him who “judgeth EVERY man’s work” without partiality.

The Caveat

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant…”

Related Post: Following Jesus

“Nothing is really lost by a life of sacrifice;
every thing is lost by failure to obey God’s call.”
H. P. L.

Our Participation
In His Will

“We cannot embrace His cross, and yet refuse our own. We cannot raise the cup of His remembrance to our lips, without a secret pledge to Him, to one another, to the great company of the faithful in every age that we, too, hold ourselves at God’s disposal, that we will ask nothing on our own account, that we will pass simply into the Divine hand to take us whither it will.”
— JMM

Brian Troxel