following Jesus

On Silva and Following Jesus

silva Peter's denial of his impending denial in Matthew 26 is a reminder to every follower of Jesus that over-confidence is the first step toward falling. The more confident we are in our own dedication, devotion, and ability to withstand temptation the further down we have let our guard.

We are like a fighter who gets so confident in our ability, we start to let down our guard to a point when our formidable foe takes the chance we gave him in our over-confidence to knock us out.

When Jesus tells his disciples [us] that we will fall away, it ought to be a sobering reminder to take this seriously and realize we are not as strong as we think we are. We ought to humbly keep our guard up.

On the arts of following Jesus and shaving

Reed Markham said "Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow." While I sat letting that sink in to my heart of a father for my daughter, I realized how this applies to other arenas of my life. Particularly, I realized how much it applies to being a follower of Jesus.

After we decided to follow Jesus, many of us quit deciding to follow Jesus.

At the heart of this quote and its challenge is 'intentionality'. No matter how great my faith seems to be today, I still have to decide to follow Jesus tomorrow. Following Jesus is not a one time decision.