Jesus Followed

What Did Jesus Do?

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness…
Matthew 4.1

In the best tradition of leadership, Jesus never asked a disciple to do anything He wouldn’t do. Take following, for example: Jesus called others to follow Him. But did you ever stop and consider that Jesus was a follower himself? Sure, He was the King of kings and the Lord of lords, but He was also the Son who obeyed the Father in every detail, following the course dictated by His Father’s will. It was not the Lord’s idea to go and spend forty days fasting in the wilderness, but it was the course the Father chose, and the one Jesus faithfully followed. It wasn’t that Jesus couldn’t think and act for himself, but He was all about His Father’s business. We might even say that Christ’s life was “scripted” by the Father:

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
John 14.10

It was never a matter of Jesus deciding, “Today I think I will go to Tyre and Sidon” or “I feel like crossing over to the country of the Gerasenes tomorrow.” Jesus followed the leading of the Holy Spirit, who always illumines the path of the Father’s will. The Lord was so committed to following carefully and completely the exact course the Father chose for Him that He spent much time in prayer, lest even the smallest detail of His walk be missed. Jesus knew that the only way He could avoid ever taking a misstep was to follow the Father’s will so closely that every step was clear.

Of course, there were many times when the faithful steps of Jesus led Him to contests with demonic spirits, confrontations with scribes and Pharisees and priests, and painful delays (Think of the difficult days of waiting after word had come that His friend Lazarus was critically ill. See John 11). Ultimately Jesus had to follow the road to the cross. Being the Son of God didn’t mean that following the will of the Father would be easy, quite the contrary in fact. Following faithfully meant that Jesus walked the most difficult path any of us could ever imagine.

If Jesus made the difficult choice to follow wherever the Father led Him by the Spirit, do you think He calls us to follow without knowing how hard it is to respond faithfully? Jesus knew there were easier paths He could have taken; the temptations Satan set before the Lord were real (See Matthew 4.1-11); He would have preferred a different cup of suffering, or no cup at all, yet chose to follow the bitter path to Golgotha (See Matthew 26.39).

Of course, Jesus followed faithfully because He trusted the Father completely. What course will we follow today, one of our own choosing, or the one Jesus calls us to take? Do we trust the Father and follow Him faithfully? That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4