Good Morning Friends,
“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus
said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” (John 8:31-32)
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?
It’s not about going to church. It’s not about an intellectual belief in who He
is. It’s not about participation in rituals and ceremonies. All of those have
value and help in some ways, but they are not the heart of what it means to be
a disciple of Jesus.
To be a disciple means to be a learner and a
follower. A disciple listens to the one of whom he is a disciple and then
follows that teaching. So, a disciple of Jesus listens to the teaching of Jesus,
but not in an intellectual pursuit of knowledge, but listens in order to follow
what He says.
That sounds like bondage to some people. To
do what someone else tells us to do, even someone like Jesus, means that we
can’t just do whatever we want and many people object to that. More than anything
else, many people what to be their own bosses and do whatever it is they want
to do. They think that anything else is bondage.
But the truth is, to follow Jesus is not
bondage, it is freedom, real freedom. To listen to the teaching of Jesus and to
follow it is to live in the way God created us to live, and that’s freedom. It’s
freedom from guilt, freedom from the power of sin, freedom to be the people God
created us to be.
The truth sets us free. Following Jesus sets
us free.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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