Following Requires Movement

"Following requires movement" - Kyle Idleman

Following requires movement. If you are wondering why that's the 3rd time you are reading that phrase, it's because it holds such a great deal of wisdom for our lives and our relationship with Jesus.

It captures God's desire for our lives. That we would follow him and take the terrifying next steps to move from belief to action, from feelings of hope to stepping out in faith, from being a fan of Jesus and taking the "broad road" that's leads to destruction to being a follower and entering through the "narrow gate."

Now, you have to understanding something about me. I have a great tendency to mentally grasp a concept, speak about it, cast vision for it, write about it (often in this blog), and after all that MAYBE I will take action on it.

I am a well spoken human being. I do not struggle to communicate in an eloquent fashion. I fully acknowledge that as a gift from God, a sign of his grace, and something that has taken a very long time with many mistakes to be worked out.

However, I GREATLY struggle with being a guy who puts action and weight behind his words. As I think about it, I don't believe that makes me too different from many people on this earth. It's very easy to have belief and words that are separate from action.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 16: 24-25:

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'"

The call is clear: Follow me. Don't talk about following me, don't pretend like you follow me, but actually follow me.

Following Jesus requires movement. It requires both you and I making sure that our words and actions are one in the same and that, most importantly of all, they both flow out of a relationship with Jesus where we know Jesus and are fully known by him. (aka intimacy)

Before I wrote this post, I made sure that I actually took some hard steps in my life that I had been putting off. You better believe I felt empowered to take those steps because of the community of people I have willing to represent Jesus and speak both grace and truth.

You better believe I texted every one of those people after I took those steps today. THEN I wrote this blog.

I leave you with 2 questions:

What is the next step Jesus has been asking you to take with him?

Who is going to keep you accountable and take that step with you?

Remember. Following Jesus requires movement. Let's stop standing still.