Beloved Family… I believe the Lord is continually giving us further insight concerning the focus that the Follow Me Ministry is supposed to maintain. He’s doing that to intensify what He intends to do on behalf of Our Messiah’s earthly Body, through FMM. He has shown us that our purpose, focus, and function are meant to be unique and highly specialized. In comparison to most other ministerial pursuits, our path is extremely ‘narrow’ in the sense that we are commissioned to specialize in getting to know and to live as one with our resurrected Messiah.
This calls for a much deeper and more intensely personal and interactive level of penetration than people have been accustomed to in earlier times. Since we’re entering the era of the Last Days, this intensity of focus will have to become more powerful and all-encompassing for us than it has ever been in previous eras of human history.
The Purpose of Follow Me Ministries
This is the Follow Me Ministry purpose: to minister and pay attention to our Lord Himself. And because of this, our focus will differ greatly from that of many other ministries who love and serve the Lord by doing what He said concerning loving and caring for our neighbors, as we would do for ourselves. So the focus of other ministries is specifically meant to bless people directly, by addressing their many personal needs.
But our purpose, while it does reach out to bless and help the Lord’s people, is nevertheless, specially geared to keep our focus upon our risen Lord Himself. We are to concern ourselves with interacting with Him at all times and to attend to whatever He desires us to do to assist Him as He carries out the will and purposes of His Father’s Kingdom on Earth, just as His Father directs Him to do. Our job is to assist Him in doing that.
We are called to bear the Fruit that Father sends His Son to Earth to produce. Whatever He is here to be and to do on Earth… is what we are to allow Him to do… to us… in us… and through us. So by serving and attending to Him, we expedite His Ministry to His Father, on behalf of every human being that God has created, and ever will create. We serve as the Body on Earth, through which God’s Living Word does for all the people on Earth, everything His Father sends Him to do to save, heal, bless, and restore us all.
This is why the FMM Family is being trained to maintain a constant focus of attention on Him and to serve Him in any way the Holy Spirit directs and empowers us to serve Him. We attend to our Master’s honor, praise, worship and His work of fulfilling His Father’s will. We must always remember that our Master is always here with us, to do His Father’s will.
Not Man-Centered
So, just as the Son’s focus must always be on His Father and on serving and obeying Him, so must our focus, as the Son’s disciples, be directed in the same way upon the Son who is doing His Father’s will through our flesh and in our midst. We are called specifically to serve and obey the Word of the Father; and, by serving the Word, we are as one with our Father who sends His Son into our hearts and into our midst, to live and act and bless, in His Name.
There is much more that is implied and included in the idea and sphere of our salvation. In modern times, it has become a widely held assumption that we are ‘saved’ simply if we decide to step forward in response to an ‘altar call’ or if someone leads us in the recitation of ‘the sinner’s prayer.’ And so the common understanding today in Christendom concerns all the wonderful and good things that God is here to do FOR MAN. It is assumed that God is here to serve us and cater to Man’s wishes, whims, and personal concerns.
But, in my opinion, that focus is much too narrow and grossly inaccurate. God’s true focus is not primarily about Him serving as our ‘Sugar Daddy’ or ‘Nanny’ or Personal Servant. Yes, it’s true, God is the sole Source of all of our provision, protection, and well being, but His primary concern is to make sure that everything in all of Creation is properly lined up with His Perfect Eternal Nature and His Standards of Righteousness, Truth and Justice, and His Perfect Plan for the Fulfillment of every speck of every created being or thing that He has made. All of that is to be a perfect reflection and proclamation of His Infinitely Perfect Nature, and His Eternal Glory, Righteousness, Goodness, and Truth.
Many who have that very common, modern, ‘Man-centered’ self-adoring understanding of Reality and of God, and what He is here to do, also have a Self-centered understanding of themselves and their own importance in matters pertaining to God. Therefore, as soon as someone does step forward at an altar call summons and makes a personal decision to choose Yeshua to serve as their personal Savior, and then leaves it at that, will also assume that this is all there is to it! They are led to assume further, that from that point onward they will forever be ‘okay’ and ‘right with God’ and therefore are also automatically ‘called’ to ‘serve’ in some official form of ministry or another.
But beloved, I believe that if we ponder the Scriptures from beginning to end, we will come up with a completely different understanding of salvation and ministry. What people commonly assume to be true, isn’t even close to the revelation Scripture gives, concerning these critically important matters:
Isaiah 55:8-11
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Therefore, even on your best day, whatever you think or assume is, in Reality, light years removed from who I actually AM, and what I am doing throughout all of My Creation. I cannot depend on you therefore, to know My Mind, or My purposes and Plan. Only I know that. So I must send My own Word and Holy Spirit to do My bidding, in your name.)
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent It!” (And so, in this way, I make sure that, because My own Word has done all the work, in your name and for your sake, that is why and how you are covered and made righteous and redeemed and restored to My original Perfect Specifications.) (Amplification added.)
John 15:16
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My Name He may give to you.”
So the written Word tells us that God sends His Living Word to do His Father’s will, at all times and in all things. It also tells us that He has already done every bit of the necessary works of Creation and Redemption that Father had in mind! All of it has already been done to Perfection and is waiting to be revealed in our dimension of space and time (See Genesis 2:1-3 & John 19:28-30).
God intends to send the Fruit of His Word’s Perfect Finished work to us in very timely fashion, in the form of our ‘Daily Bread.’ We are to come to Him in prayer, thanking Him in advance for what has already been provided for us, so that He may impart it from Eternity, to us who abide in this space and time dimension. We thus receive from Him whatever He, in His infinitely perfect Wisdom, has already known, created and provided from all of eternity! He knew before this time and space dimension was created, everything that would happen and everything we would do or fail to do, and everything we would ever need at any moment of our earthly existence. He has always had every situation and circumstance and care, concern, and need we would ever encounter in our time-based dimension… COVERED AND PAID FOR AND GIVEN! Everything we’ll ever need to fulfill our God-given essence, identity and earthly purpose is ready for us to come to God so that He may impart it to us (See Matthew 11:25-30).
We Bear His Fruit
So the purpose of the Living Word of God is to produce and give to us the Eternal Fruit of His Finished Works which His Father already has waiting for us in Heaven. The Holy Spirit abides within each disciple to transmit what is Eternally present before the Father, into the time and space existences and circumstances of God’s Covenant friends on Earth. The Holy Spirit transmits all that pertains to God’s Word and His obedience to His Father, into the Word’s disciples… so that we can bear His Fruit in due season… to the Eternal Glory and Praise of the Father, whose idea all of this was in the first place!
So, from all of this we can see that in Reality and Truth, everything in all of Creation is, and must always continue to be, totally God-centered. Our Creator is to be Preeminent over us at all times, and in all things, since it is His intention to be the sole Source of Everything we will ever be or have or become.
Psalm 50:11-13
“I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats?”
So in all things, Almighty God is our Perfect All-Sufficient Source, and our sole Provider and Protector, and our sole reason for being! Therefore, everything is, and always must be, all about Him, and not at all about anything He may decide to create. And the same is true for what we consider to be ‘ministry.’ It is clearly said in the book of Acts that people who appoint themselves to serve in the capacity of authentic disciples, and who have not been specifically and personally called into service by His Living Word, will be unmercifully exposed as frauds and weeded out as useless and unreal and unnecessary hindrances:
Acts 19:13-16
“But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
“For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:30-31)
So when God takes the initiative to call and commission a human being to serve Him as one of His authentic disciples, it is a fearsome matter that is never to be taken lightly. God knows that the stakes concerning the issues, in which God calls them to His service, are inexpressibly high, and that nothing on earth can compare to those eternal stakes in importance and significance. And so, therefore, God never allows His own priestly people to indulge in any practices or procedures that would be so ridiculously shallow, magical and self-centered as things and activities that mislead people into assuming that this is all about fallen, Sin-corrupted humans, and the satisfaction and completion of their tainted agendas and personal whims, passions, urges and desires.
So what I see in the Bible is this: when people are saved, it is because, in one way or another, God has sent His Living Word to personally reveal Himself to them. And, in a chillingly, piercingly personal and invasive way, His call gores them all the way down to their innermost being. In other words, our Heavenly Father reveals Himself to people, and summons them through His Living Word, in ways that pierce, penetrate and impregnate them with His devastating Truth and overwhelmingly heart-softening Presence, so that He may be free to share His Eternal Life with them… and also with others, through them!
True Repentance
True repentance over our state of Sin, which is the mindset and attitude of thinking that we’re radically independent of our Creator, is the first thing that must take place after we have been ‘saved.’ It is the first step in our post-salvation disciple-becoming process. And, at the beginning, that process is always devastating because it exposes us to ourselves.
It shows us what and where we really are, and it strips us of our self-centered and self-adoring arrogance and convicts us of our state of Sin and compels us to repent and ask the Lord for mercy and salvation. In the past, I’ve described the interaction that leads to salvation as something that resembles what a cockroach must feel, when one moment, in the middle of a dark night, it has a kitchen all to itself. So it enjoys full liberty as it explores the kitchen floor and the counters, scouting and scurrying up and down, in hopes of finding food for itself and its fellows.
But then when a human unexpectedly enters the kitchen in the middle of the night and turns on the light switch… then… in one shocking, terrifying instant, everything changes for the cockroach. The invader’s space is suddenly invaded by something totally unexpected. And the insect is exposed and its dark protective comfort zone is destroyed by this most startling and frighteningly brilliant invasion! And, beloved, that is what the first step in the salvation process is really like. That’s the way it is when Holiness Himself invades the space of a sinner. It happened to Noah… and to Abram and to Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and to Matthew the tax collector and Mary Magdalene and Zaccheus and Saul of Tarsus, and the supervisor of the prison in Philippi, and to many, many others as well.
Matthew 3:7-10
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
So this is how it really is, if we are to truly come to know the Word of God made flesh as our Rescuer and Redeemer. And so God requires and commands all humans to come to His beloved Son in that totally spiritually naked, repentant state, and to submit to and receive whatever He has done on their behalf to save them from themselves and from the guilt and condemnation of the sins they’ve committed against their Creator and His Perfect Order and Plan and Purposes.
But then after that has happened, and it is actually time to serve Almighty God and attend to His Messiah’s requirements in some form of ministerial service, even more is expected of us! We must go beyond just repenting of what we are and asking God to deliver and rescue and redeem us… we must also become wholeheartedly willing to surrender our independent airs and ways to the God-obedient will and purposes of God’s Living and written Word… completely! So the new birth of our regenerated spirits… requires the corresponding death of our radically independent and arrogant flesh-driven initiatives and aspirations.
The personal disciples of our Lord and Messiah are taken into a much deeper and intimately personal relationship with God’s Living Word than this fallen world could ever imagine. God chooses whomever He wills for this awesome position and interactive relationship with His Living Word. We do not decide to do this by any false authority we may take upon ourselves. We do not have any authority to appoint or choose ourselves to become disciples, or anything else.
Our sole Creator and Source is the one who determines what our personal identity, purpose, commission, and destiny are to be. These are not decisions that we or any other human or angelic creature has the authority or ability to make. It is only when the Lord Himself seeks us out and specifically and personally summons us to follow Him as His disciples that we have the right to begin to think of ourselves in those terms. And then… if we do decide to obey His summons… there are two other steps we must take before we’re actually free and able to take on His yoke and the disciple lifestyle that goes with this unique and very narrow disciple path:
Matthew 16:24-27
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must (first) deny himself, and (he must) take up his cross and (THEN, as the cross continually puts to death the rebellious urges of his original self-life he will remain in the proper state of mind and being to be able to) follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the Glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Before we can even begin to think of being the Lord’s disciple, we must take the first steps that He always requires of anyone that would become His very own possession. We must deny, or forsake our radical independence and the self-absorbed, self-centered airs and activities that flow out of it. So, as soon as He calls us into His service, if we should choose to follow Him on His terms, all ideas concerning self-enhancement or self-promotion or self-gratification and competitive agendas, will be continually removed by their death on the Cross… and be removed from our personal life picture.
But what does that mean? What does it look like? And how is it done? Must we try to fill ourselves with some toxic kind of shame and indulge in practices of personal degradation and wallow in ascetic types of self-deprivation and personal flagellation? No, that’s not it. If we did that, we’d continue to obsess over ourselves and what we’re doing and how we’re doing it! This isn’t about us doing something to ourselves, by ourselves, on behalf of our Lord.
When we continue to act on that basis, we’re still trying to maintain and accomplish some sort of self-generated, self-absorbed focus and agenda. In that case, we’re still in charge and are not truly learning to believe in the Resurrection Presence of our Master and learning to follow His leading! As long as we continue to try to do something for God, or like God, we’re still thinking of ourselves as being independent agents and serving as our own source and manager. So we focus on ourselves and what we think we’re going to do, and how we will do it, and ignore the Glory and All-Sufficiency of what Almighty God has already done through His Word, in our name!
The Tug of War
So, a true disciple must learn to deny those urges that will always continue to boil up from within, to try to regain control over us. This tug of war struggle will continue within us as long as we remain in this fallen world! So we must be trained rigorously in our Master’s ways, so we can have the time and opportunity to become rewired and reprogrammed according to God’s actual disciple lifestyle specifications. We must now begin to learn to actually allow God Himself to be and to do whatever He wishes… to us, in us and through us! And only when we truly know and believe that He is absolutely and eternally Perfect and All-Sufficient, in every way and on every level, will we also believe that what He has already done in Eternity will be more than enough for us… in space and time.
We must stop looking to ourselves, and stop relying on our own initiatives to do or accomplish anything… entirely! The Cross that the Lord commands us to take up for ourselves, is the instrument that will do all of that. It will terminally deliver us from self-reliance and make it impossible for us to continue to exalt and emphasize and try to enhance or debase, or improve ourselves, in one sneaky way or another. To truly deny ourselves, in this Biblical sense, we must embrace our Cross and allow the Holy Spirit to use it to deal with us in any way He sees fit. We can’t crucify or kill ourselves. God is the only one who knows exactly what needs to be done with each one of us. So His Spirit must do the work of eliminating our radically independent sense of self and teach us to defer to our risen Lord, who will be indwelling us permanently, from that point forward.
From now on, we must consider our self-life to be dead… executed and buried with our Messiah. And that realization will leave us no other choice but to learn to depend on our Master’s Spirit-imparted indwelling Presence to take over in us, and to move and empower us to obey the Word of Almighty God… so that from now on, He may live His Perfect and Eternally Righteous Resurrection Life from within our flesh. To deny our Self is to forsake our radically independent existence… and exchange it… for the practice of habitually embracing and deferring to our Lord and Master, so that He may serve as our New Eternal Life. And this is how the Perfect Presence of God’s Living Word will be free to reveal the supernatural Fruit He has already produced in Eternity, from within us and our circumstances in space and time. Then He will manifest God’s Glory and fulfill His Eternal Plan on Earth, in our name.
Which Life Possibility Will We Choose
After the Word of God has invaded our space, and exposed the Sin-corruption that compels each of us to act independently as if we were God in our own right, we must learn to defer to God habitually, allowing His precious Word to live His Life in our name, through our spirits, souls, and bodies. This is what our Cross is meant to do. And of course, our fallen flesh will scream and kick against the idea of such a total and complete execution.
Flesh will instinctively and automatically resist, and it will insist on protecting itself and maintaining its existence and former sense of autonomy and control. And we must put, and keep it, in its rightful place; and consider it to be dead, despite its efforts to break free and resume its rebellion against God. So it’s clear to see that this will be a daily struggle for us… especially at first… before our mind and brain have had a chance to be renewed and rewired and reprogrammed. They must match our new spiritual God-empowered Reality.
So after our salvation, we will have access to two possibilities instead of only one: we’ll be forced to choose between surrendering to our natural innate Self-life tendencies… or… we’ll have the choice of laying our self-life down as a living sacrifice on God’s sacrificial altar, and deferring to our Messiah and His Perfect Righteous Life. We can have either life, but we can’t have both. One must always be crucified and kept out of the way of the other. And it will always be up to us to make that choice, in cold blood. We must decide, over and over again, which of those two ‘life possibilities’ we will allow to prevail and operate from within us. And in that way, we have the blessed opportunity to caress God’s face and give everything we are and have, to Him alone.
If we choose to obey the Lord’s call to follow Him as His disciples, our inherent Darkness must be continually subdued and overwhelmed by His devastatingly piercing, penetrating, blinding Light. What we are in ourselves, by our original fallen nature, will be shown to be the tawdry, vile and false thing it truly is. And, our Master’s awesome Holiness will be highlighted by comparison, over and against our utter corruption and bankruptcy and inability.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
“… To keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The Word’s Infinite Purity and Righteousness and Overwhelming Truth and Absolute Authority will explode all over us and leave us prostrate in the dust. There will be nothing we can say or do… but remain stunned… acknowledging our utter lack of comprehension and inability to understand what has happened to us and the incomprehensible Enormity and Magnitude of the One who is dealing with us and transforming us into His own image and likeness!
John 21:18-20
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!”
So, beloved friends, admitting our true state of Sin and our inability to do anything about it to save ourselves, drives us to renounce our former deep-seated habits of acting independently of God and assuming that our existence is our own property and that we have the right to manage it and do anything we wish with it. Having Truth strip us of that demonic delusion is the first step in the process of receiving the awesome Gift of Salvation from God… the step of true repentance. That sets us up for the next step of denying and forsaking our self-life, and the third step of taking up our personal Cross… which is the continuous renunciation of our former self-life… the execution of all the resistance that our fallen flesh will try to exert and putting down any effort it will make to take control of us once more.
When we actually begin to cause those steps to take deep root within us and become reality, then, if the Lord decides to call us into His service… we will finally be ready and in the proper position to begin to follow His leading from that time forward. So, consider once again what our Master tells His disciples about this awesome disciple lifestyle:
John 15:16
“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My Name He may give to you.”
This is absolutely necessary for anyone who is truly serious about actually following Him, and hopes to be able to ‘hear His voice.’ So once we know we’ve truly heard Him give us that ‘Follow Me’ command… we will be changed forever. We will never again be the same as we were just before the Lord said that to us. At that awesome moment… it will be as if the Word has applied God’s ‘branding iron of ownership’ to our spirit and soul. From that point forward, we will know beyond any doubt, that He owns us. And, never again will we will ever be able to assume again that we are our own.
1 Corinthians 7:22-24
“For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men (not even of yourself). Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that (crucified and Spirit-empowered) condition in which he was called.” (Amplification added.)
When that awesome call to follow God’s Word comes, notification is simultaneously given to all of Creation that from now on, our Master has claimed this chosen blessed and most honored person, as His personal property and possession. And from that time forward, we who have been called, are among those that the sacrificial suffering, bloodshed, and death of God’s Living Word has purchased and redeemed and apprehended in order to make us His very own property and bring us into His personal service.
Realizing and admitting and following through on this is what kills our former radically independent life and its ways. We don’t do it; the Lord Himself does it, but we must agree with Him and allow the Holy Spirit to continually apply our Cross to anything in us that would continue to stand in the way of our total identification and union with God’s Living Word made flesh. If we allow this, the Cross will do its work and strip away from us anything that may still be impeding what God wills to be and to do from within us.
When we remain in that truly crucified state, God’s Word made flesh is free to live His Eternally Perfect Resurrection Life through us. And then, we’re true New Covenant disciples that are ready to give the testimony of our Messiah-revealing embodiment in the combat with our demonic enemies, in the Arena of Testimony that will appear on Earth, as the Last Days begin to run their climactic course.
1 John 2:25-28
“This is the promise which He Himself made to us: Eternal Life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you (it is the Holy Spirit Himself, revealing what is in God’s Word to your heart of hearts,) and (since God is teaching, guiding and correcting you from within) you have no need for anyone (that is created and has been Sin-corrupted as you were) to teach you (from outside of you); but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him!
“Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
1 John 3:1-12
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
“Everyone who practices sin also practices Lawlessness (Torahlessness); and sin is Lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins (through His Torah revelation); and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
“The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
“For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.”
A friend of mine recently shared with me something that was found in the belongings of a pastor in Zimbabwe, Africa, after his death. I share what he wrote because it articulates the mind and heart of a true disciple of the same caliber as Stephen, the first New Covenant martyr:
Leadership Pledge:
“I am a disciple of Jesus. I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made and I will not relent. I am a disciple of Christ! I will not look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still! My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. I am finished – done – with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, stagnant thinking, colorless dreams, tamed vision, mundane talking, hands that hang down, steps that are halting, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.
I do not want preeminence, position, promotion, applause, popularity, or praise. I am His disciple. I do not have to be right, first, tops, recognized, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith; I lean on His presence, walk by His patience, and trust in His grace. I am lifted up by prayer, and I labor by love. My face is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road is narrow. My way is rough. My enemy is fighting me, but my Guide is reliable.
My mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I will not give up, shut up, let up, or back up until I have prayed up, stored up, paid up, preached up, and pushed up the cause of Christ.
My effort can only be shortened by my death, or by my going up. I am a disciple of Christ. I must go until He comes, give until I’ve done His will, preach until all know, and work until He stops me. And when he comes for His own, I pray He will have no problem recognizing me because I am sold out. I am His disciple.”
-Author Unknown
Serving Almighty God
Beloved friends… since the Lord has blessed and privileged and honored us by giving us that awesome command, “Follow Me”… it is utterly necessary that we pay close attention and remain diligent in making sure that we’ve actually taken those first steps that put us in the proper position to actually abide as one with our magnificent Lord.
He is worthy of anything we will have to forsake and lay down. And, in return for us laying our lives down for Him… He gladly and wholeheartedly gives Himself to us. And He contains within Himself, all of the Fullness of Almighty God! Could we ever encounter any wiser or more profitable exchange than that? What could be better than having Almighty God, in all of His Eternal Perfection and Fullness and Authority… abiding with us as our Invincible Covenant Friend and Champion? So this is why our Follow Me Ministries Family is blessed and privileged to learn to maintain the entire focus of our heart and soul, upon our resurrected Messiah, for only He is worthy of such total devotion and service.