Recently I sent my friend a link and message that read “I follow this girl, she has some really great recipes”

Later I was thinking… 10-15 years ago, that sentence would have made no sense.  I followed a girl???? Where!?!?  Who is the girl?  Why was I following her?  How did I get her recipes!?!

But my friend didn’t ask me any of those questions. She immediately knew that the girl in the link was an influencer and she had cooking videos on her social media pages.  She didn’t even have to click the link to understand the term “follow” has a different meaning in our current time. 

Well that made me think about *following* 2000+ years ago. When Jesus said in Matthew 4:19 “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Or later in 9:9, He told Matthew the tax collector,…”Follow me” and he left his booth and did just that. 

When Jesus told these men to follow Him, it wasn’t the passive “like, subscribe and follow”, He expected them to leave behind their livelihoods and physically follow Him. 

It wasn’t a simple matter of looking at his recipe collection online. It was a commitment that literally cost them their lives. They left their homes, jobs, and families to actively support and participate in His ministry. And they were expected to carry it on, after he was crucified, resurrected and ascended. 

We are called to follow Him today. We need to make sure it’s more than a casual click or like. We must surrender to Him. We probably won’t be asked to give up our lives in America, but we must be ready to do that if it were required.  

Later in the book of Matthew (28:19-20) we, like those first century followers, are instructed to carry on and spread that simple gospel message…and proclaim his death, burial and resurrection…creating more followers. Not of ourselves but of HIM!!!

That is the most important “follow” we will ever do.