Following the @SavioroftheWorld

Sometimes I wish following Jesus was like following somebody on Twitter. With just one click of the button you could subscribe to everything He had to say about anything.
It is obvious, however, that Jesus had a completely different idea in mind when he asked people to follow Him.
To see what He did mean, I got nerdy and went to the Greek.
Of the 23 times that Jesus mentioned the word “follow” in the New Testament, 22 of those times He used the Greek word akoloutheo. Strong’s translates this word as “to be in accompany with…follow, reach.”₁

Jesus wanted more from His disciples than just some people who would retweet every profound thing He said. He was going places and He wanted some people willing to go there with Him.
To be honest, the whole “Jesus the disciple recruiter” section of the Gospels as always confused me. In all the Bible movies we see Jesus with His long flowing hair and Miss America sash walking down a beach where He sees some fishermen. He looks at them with a dreamy stare and says “follow me” and walks off while a couple of guys look at each other, shrug their shoulders, drop their nets and commit to full-time ministry. Maybe they just have more faith than me but my first question would immediately be “follow you where? where are you going?”
The disciples did not seem to have any questions at all.
Why did they follow? Where did they think they were going?
They just went. They gave up everything they had because they knew that whoever this Jesus was, He had something they wanted that could only be obtained by following.
Can you imagine how hard it would have been to explain to their families that they had just dropped everything to follow this guy named Jesus? I mean for us, Jesus is a historical figure and is considered by even non-Christians to be one of the most influential people of all time but for the first disciples, Jesus was a guy most of them grew up with.
“Hey mom, I am giving up the whole family tradition of fishing and I think I am jut going to go follow Jesus around for awhile.”
“Who?”
“Jesus, you know, Mary and Joseph’s boy.”
“That kid that talked with a lisp?”
“No no, the one that came to my birthday party in 4th grade.”
“Oh that kid, why are you following him?”
“I’m not sure, I think he might be the savior of the world or something.”
Following Jesus was a crazy idea then and it should be just as crazy now. Following Jesus never meant simply acknowledging his existence. It has always meant going places you never would have gone on your own. It means believing things that you would never even consider unless Jesus told you and made those things fact. Jesus said some pretty crazy stuff and He wants us to fully submit to regardless of what we have been taught or what other people believe. Following Jesus means that we take the things he said as literally as He intended and accept them as our own beliefs and convictions.
For a lot of things He said this is pretty easy. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”₂ is pretty easy to grasp. “Ask and it will be given to you”₃  is very comforting to believe.
But then Jesus say things like “Blessed are those who mourn,”₄ and “Blessed are those who are persecuted”₅. He compares being angry with somebody to being guilty of manslaughter₆ He said calling somebody stupid might send you to Hell₇. He said when someone punches you in the face you are to allow them to punch you in the other side of the face without resistance₈. He told us to give to the government everything that belongs to them, even if they are a corrupt empire₉. He said it was easier for a 300+lb. desert mammal to be shoved through the eye of a sewing needle than someone with a lot of money to get into Heaven₁₀. He said that anyone who marries a woman who had a divorce commits adultery₁₁. He said self-mutilation was better than sneaking a peek at the butt of the blonde that just walked by₁₂ . And this is all from just the first book in the New Testament!
To be honest, I don’t always want to retweet Jesus.
I f I took Jesus literally, I don’t know if people would ever read what I wrote. I would be considered judgmental and dogmatic. I would offend people and they would tell me that I just didn’t understand their circumstances. I could potentially turn people away from Christianity.
I know all this would happen to me because that is exactly what happened to Jesus.
But here is the kicker. If Jesus meant “to be in accompany with” when He asked us to follow, then that means He will never lead us anywhere where He himself has not been. He did not just tell us to turn the other cheek, He let people rip out His beard while they beat Him with sticks and whips while He showed the world what real persecution looks like. He did not just tell us that it is good for us to mourn, but He waited until His friend died and all hope was lost to brings him back from the dead. He watched everyone He was close to abandon Him when He needed them most.
Everything He Jesus meant for us to take literally He demonstrated with His own life.
Following Jesus means pouring your heart and soul into people only to have them ignore you and run away. Following Jesus means that you continually get used and are underappreciated. Following Jesus means that people around you don’t understand you and are sometimes even offended by what you believe.
So I have to ask myself, “does my life look like the life Jesus lived?”
Am I really following Jesus? Do I really believe the things He is tweeting?
It isn’t easy to look at what Jesus was saying to a largely illiterate audience of Palestinian Jews and insert it into our 21st century Western way of life with total accuracy. It is probably like trying to figure out what this post is talking about if you don’t know what the heck this Twitter thing is. Figuring it all out though and living like Jesus has to be worth it. Why else would Jesus live that way?

1-Strong, James, “Follow.” New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance: King James Version. Nashville, Tn. Thomas Nelson. 2005. print    2-Mt 7:12, 3-Mt 7:7, 4- Mt 5:4, 5- Mt 5:10, 6-Mt 5:21-22, 7-Mt 5:22, 8- Mt 5:38, 9- Mt 22:21, 10- Mt 19:21, 11-Mt 5:32, 12- Mt 5:28-30 
(all Scripture references from the NIV)