Who are You a Following?

Do people recognize you as having spent time with Jesus? For most believers, I think this is what they would like to be true about them. At least they know it should be true about them. It was true for Peter and John. "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognized them as having been with Jesus." Acts 4:13 Many might think that of course Peter and John would be recognized for being with Jesus, after all, they were Jesus' disciples. We often think that people like Peter and John are somehow different than we are. We think they are somehow more able to be just a touch more holy than we could ever be or just a little more powerful than God would allow us to be. If you have ever thought that, were do you get such ideas? We know from Acts 2:38-39 that we have the same Holy Spirit that Peter and John had. We also know that Jesus told Peter, John and others to teach everyone everything that Jesus taught them. In other words, if there were any secrets that Peter and John knew about being a good follower of Christ, they were commanded to cough up the goods. Well, the 'goods' is the Holy Spirit. The difference, I would say, is my and your submission to Him. Just how hungry are you for Jesus anyway? Ok, so any believer can be recognized as having been with Jesus as they cooperate with the Holy Spirit and invest time and humility into the process. We can all be super saints but only if you are close, or getting close to the source which is Jesus Christ. And that is the key. We must each be a disciple of Jesus Christ Himself. We should not be disciples of another man. When we read words like "...go and make disciples of all the nations..." we might read that we are to make disciples of ourselves but this would be wrong. We are to be helping people become disciples of Jesus. Just think, if Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and then Samuel was a disciple of Matthew and Marian was a disciple of Samuel and Gomer was a disciple of Marian...and on and on, you and I wouldn't even know who the original was. We would be a highly diluted imitation of what Jesus wants us to be. We must each be pointing people who want to be a disciple back to the source, Jesus Christ Himself. Then each copy has the potential to the as powerful as they are willing to invest their life into following Jesus. So how about you? How close to Jesus are you? How close do you want to be? What stops you from getting that close to Him? Who is there around you who can help point you back to Jesus? I know for certain that Jesus is calling you to be more and more like Him. "My sheep hear my voice and follow Me." That is what Jesus tells us. share that we should be disciples of Jesus and when we make disciples it is not disciples of us - that is only a week copy of the original - we should be making people disciples of Christ - it is enough that a student becomes like his teacher.