Jul 28, 2023
Hey, it's Mike Henry
with Follower of One. In episode 199 of our podcast (https://followerofone.org/who-is-greatest-luke-22-27/),
we talked about Luke 22:27, but today I want to talk about Luke
22:28. And the verse simply says “You are those who have stood by
me in my trials.” Jesus is speaking to the disciples and He's
actually calling them out a little bit, because they're having an
argument about which one of them is greatest in the kingdom.
And this is the last
night or so of Jesus's life. So here they are, arguing about which
one of them is greatest, and Jesus interrupts them and He reminds
them the story about who's greater. That's what episode 199 is
about. But this episode, which I think is 522 of our podcast -
thank you for being a listener - this is about the next phrase. You
are those who have stood by me in my trials.
We get the choice as
followers of Jesus to go with Jesus and stand by Him in His trials,
to follow Him daily, or we can choose not to follow Him. I can
choose to not follow Him in the next few minutes. Choose to watch
something that takes me away from Him or do something that
separates me from Him.
I can concentrate on
myself. There are so many millions of ways that we can leave Jesus.
It's this constant struggle. And I think one of the goals of at
least my Christian life has been learning to trust Jesus to keep me
drawn to Him, and to keep me connected to Him. And today what I
wanted to do is challenge us a little bit.
I wanted to ask the
question: How are you? No matter where you are, do you know that if
you made a long series of choices to not follow Jesus, the next
choice, you can choose to follow Him. You can choose to do what He
says again. I don't... I can't get into the “Once saved, always
saved” or any of those kinds of arguments.
I just know I want to
do the next right thing. I want to choose in my next choice to
follow Jesus and obey Him. That's why our prayer that we like to
talk about at Follower of One, “Here I am, send me” is a profound,
powerful prayer, especially when followed with the question “Okay
Jesus, what do you want me to do today? What would you have me do
next?”
When we focus on
following Jesus in our circumstances, one choice at a time, we get
another chance to remain with Him in His trials, just like He says
here. We are those who have stood by Him in His trials. “You are
those who have stood by me in my trials” Luke 22:28, from the New
American Standard.
Let's choose today to
stand by Jesus. The difficulties and the temptations and the
distractions to separate ourselves from Him, to not stand by Him
and to not follow Him, those stay. They remain. We will always be
challenged by these temptations to separate ourselves from
following Jesus. We can’t avoid the difficulty, but we can gain the
joy and peace and love of following Jesus by simply choosing.
Here I am. Would you
please put me to work? How can you use me in the lives of the
people that I will interact with next? Show me what you would have
me do today, Jesus, and I will do it.
Try that prayer today
and watch Jesus start to transform your life. The more often I
believe we can remind ourselves that we're on the clock for Jesus
Christ, the more joy filled we will be, the more different we will
live, and the more others will ask about why it is that we're doing
the things that we do. That's also why we have to practice knowing
what we believe in saying what we believe, but start it, begin it
all today with here I am. You can begin right now.
Thanks for being a
marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference in your
world and in your workplace. The joy that Jesus gives us when we
join Him, can transform our world. Jesus is in the process of doing
that right now. Let's join Him and take part.
Thanks for listening
to this podcast or this audio, wherever you're getting it. Thank
you for listening to it. Please share it with someone else. Invite
them to join you and me over at followerofone.org. Thanks very
much.