Quiet Talks on Following the ChristGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks on Following the Christ
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Christian life; Devotional literature
But there's one other invitation which belongs in this list. It proves to
be the greatest of them all, because you come to find it includes all
these others. It's His "Follow Me." It seems at first glance to be the
same as that "Come after Me." But it is the word He repeated again and
again, under different circumstances, with added explanations, to the same
men, until you feel that He meant it to stand out as the great invitation
to His disciples. It seems to mean different things at different times.
That is to say, it grew in its significance. It came to mean more than it
had seemed to.
Peter is a good illustration here. The word really came to him five times,
with a different, an added, meaning each time. His first following meant
acquaintance.[34] John the Herald had sent his disciples, John and Andrew,
along after Jesus as He was walking one day on the Jordan river road. They
followed Jesus to their first acquaintance in a two hours' talk, which
quite satisfied their hearts as to who He was. John never forgot that
first following. Every detail of it stands out in his memory when long
years after he began to write his story of the Master. Andrew went at once
to hunt up Peter, and brought him face-to-face with his newly found Friend
and Master. That interview settled things for Peter. Andrew's following
now included his. Following meant the beginning of the personal friendship
which was to mean so much for both of them.
It was about a year after, that "Follow Me" had a new meaning to Peter and
some others.[35] The invitation was an illustrated one this time,
illustrated by a living picture of just what it meant. It was one morning
by the Lake of Galilee. Peter and his partners had had a poor night's
fishing, and were out on shore washing their nets. The Master had come
along, with a great crowd pressing in to get closer and hear better. There
was danger of the crowd pushing the Master into the water. The Master
borrowed Peter's boat for a pulpit. Peter sat facing the crowd while the
Master talked to them.
Was that the first time the spell of a crowd began to get its subtle
heart-hold on Peter as he looked into their hungry eyes? Who can withstand
the great appeal of the crowd's eyes? Not our Lord, nor any that have
caught His spirit. Then the great draught of fishes, after the fishless
night, made Peter feel the Master's power. Fishes would make him feel it,
being a fisherman, as nothing else would. The sense of Jesus' power, and
with it a sense of purity--interesting how the power made him feel the
purity--this brought him to his knees at our Lord's feet with the
confession of his own sinfulness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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