Jesus and His Followers

 

When I was eighteen years old, I met four people who loved Jesus and were excited about following Him with their whole lives. That created in me a desire to really experience Jesus daily in my own life. I was a believer; I had given my life to Jesus when I was twelve. But my desire to be a real follower of Jesus had become weak at best. It was through what I saw in these four people’s lives that I came to love Jesus and want to be His follower and His disciple more than anything.

 

Jesus became the one I looked to for my life to be like. I wanted my life to reflect Jesus. So, I looked deeply into Jesus to determine how I was to live.

 

These are things I found:

 

Philippians 2:6-8

Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

 

Jesus gave up His position.

Jesus gave up His rights.

Jesus gave up His privilege.

 

Jesus made Himself nothing.

Jesus became a servant.

Jesus humbled Himself.

 

So, if Jesus gave up His position and rights and privileges, shouldn’t we as Jesus’ followers give up our human-based position and our human-based rights and our human-based privileges?

 

So, if Jesus made Himself nothing and became a servant and humbled Himself, shouldn’t we as followers of Jesus make ourselves nothing, become servants and humble ourselves?

 

As followers of Jesus we have to stop focusing on our positions, our rights, our privileges and focus on making ourselves nothing, becoming servants, and humbling ourselves.

 

We live in a world that is focused on being entitled. Followers of Jesus need to disentitle ourselves and serve others in the name of Jesus.

 

In Mark 10:45 Jesus says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

 

Jesus came to be a servant and served others even to the point of dying for us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is, like Jesus, humbling ourselves before the Father, giving up our rights and privileges, and becoming servants.

 

Luke 5:29

And Levi made Him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

 

Jesus ate with sinners

 

John 13:3-5

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with a towel that was wrapped around Him.

 

Jesus washed the feet of the disciples.

 

Jesus did not mold His life to the values of the world or religion.

 

Jesus ate with sinners and earned the title Friend of sinners. This action went against what the religious leaders said to do. They taught people to avoid sinners. Jesus connected with them.

 

Jesus as the teacher or master had no responsibility to do anything as demeaning as washing His disciples’ feet but He did out of love for them.

 

We as followers of Jesus need to follow the values that we see in the life of Jesus, not the world or of religion. 

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is following the values of Jesus and not the world or even of religion.

 

John 6:15

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

 

Jesus denied the desire of the people to make Him king.

 

Luke 23:34

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

 

Jesus died for all people, even if they had rejected Him.

 

Jesus did not give in to the temptation to focus on the popularity of the world and chose to follow the Father’s will by giving His life as the sacrifice for sin for all people.

 

We as followers of Jesus are not to focus and desire the praise of the world, but to follow the will and mission of the Father.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is rejecting the desires of the world and doing the will of the Father.

 

As followers of Jesus we are to allow the Holy Spirit to conform us to the image of Jesus and live our lives following Jesus.

 

As a Follower and Disciple of Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

                                                            Joe