John 21:19 - “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me!’”

“I remember the first invitation I ever received from the White House. When I opened my inbox and the subject line of the email said, “From the Office of the President of the United States,” I knew this was not my average correspondence. As I read the words, I began to wonder if this was a joke or if this was real. I did some research to find out whether it was authentic, and it was.

“The invitation was for the following week, and though my schedule is usually pretty full, I dropped everything I had on that day in order to be at that appointment. I quickly booked flights to Washington, D.C. and made sure that I was there in plenty of time to meet with the president. I was honored to have been invited by him, and I changed everything around to respond to his invitation.

“If this was my reaction – and I’m guessing yours might be similar – to a world leader of one country, a man who is in power for four, maybe eight years, then how much more does an invitation from the everlasting, ever-reigning God of the entire universe in the flesh alter everything in our lives? Do we realize the weight of the one who has invited us to follow him? He is worthy of more than church attendance and casual association; he is worthy of total abandonment and supreme adoration.

“Yet even the illustration of an invitation from the president fails to accurately picture the invitation of Christ. For Jesus has not invited us to journey to him; instead he has made the journey to us…the King over all the universe, loved us so much that he came to us in the person of Jesus. He came to identify with us, even to the point of taking all our sin upon himself, in order to save us and to make it possible for us to follow him. Upon understanding this glorious reality, Annan [a college student his church was reaching out to] became a follower of Jesus – not because he had been pursuing King Jesus, but because he realized that King Jesus has pursued him. Do you realize the wonder of this?” (David Platt, Follow Me).

Today, let us thank and worship King Jesus who pursued us and said to us, “Follow me.” Let us continue to be led to “rearrange” everything in our lives around him as we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2o4dI3HA0A

-AP