“And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them. And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.” — Matt. 4:18-22
Christ calls us to come to Him and then to follow Him. Wise men do. However, to follow Christ we must be willing to leave something. The problem is that most people don’t want to leave their comfort zone. But there is no way around it. To make progress in our spiritual life, to get to the place where God wants us to be, we must leave where we are. We might remain in the same geographical location all of our life, but our primary interest must shift from everything else to Christ. As we forge ahead by faith we must leave somethings behind. And if we truly realized how much we gain by what we give we would never hold out on God. If we knew what great blessings lay ahead we wouldn’t worry about the things we leave behind. We would gladly give Him all.
Michael card wrote a song called “Things We Leave Behind” that speaks of this matter. It begins like this:
There sits Simon,
so foolishly wise
proudly he’s tending his nets
Then Jesus calls,
and the boats drift away
all that he owns he forgets
More than the nets
he abandoned that day,
he found that his pride was soon drifting away
It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find
from the things we leave behind
You would do well to read the entire song, but this makes my point. And remember this– When we are following Christ what lies ahead is always better than what we leave behind.–HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
