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“FOLLOW ME!”

The command that transforms lives…

 WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT DISCIPLESHIP?

Follow Me Ministries came into being during January-March, 2011. Our ministry purpose is: to enhance the training that the risen Lord Jesus (Yeshua), the Messiah of Israel and Lord of all Creation, gives to His personal Jewish and non-Jewish New Covenant disciples. We endeavor to serve those who have received His call to this level of discipleship by providing Bible-based meditations that will serve as ‘training aids’.

Disciples-in-training must develop our Master’s authentic Biblically-revealed world view. And they must learn to live and work upon that basis and proclaim the Salvation Message it contains to the rest of the world.  This Bible-based world view will enable them to recognize and navigate through the myriads of contradicting errors, false claims and agendas that belittle and defy the Authoritative Word of the Creator of all things, whom these disciples are totally committed to love, obey, and serve.

The Biblical world view serves as the basis for our ability to begin to understand, with accuracy and integrity, God’s Perfect Nature and His ways. Because He is Infinitely Perfect, He will never contradict, deny, or change what He has revealed, commanded and promised by His Word. So regardless of how violently His enemies may protest, or deny His existence, or defy and contradict His Word, nothing will have the authority or power to cancel or replace His Reality and the inevitability of His coming Final Judgment.

We  now live in the enormously critical and strategic era of human history that Scripture calls, ‘The Last Days’. It’s the era immediately leading up to the Grand Climactic Final Ending and Consummation of what God’s written Word reveals, commands, and promises to all. So disciples of God’s Word must know their Lord and Commander with authentic, precisely accurate fidelity, regardless of what the unbelieving world around them may say or do to the contrary. And because we’re running out of time, humanity’s window of opportunity to be made right with the Creator of all things is closing rapidly! This is why our Message is so extremely urgent!

 

We won’t seek to provide scholarly treatises or make dogmatic pronouncements in our material. We want to expedite the ability of those whom the Lord has called into His service to know Him, and abide with Him, and live from Him, at the most intimate levels possible.

So we offer ‘meditations’ for their deep consideration. They are the product of the years of our efforts to glean understanding by studying His written Word, and from our own experiences in communing and interacting with God. Our goal is to assist and expedite their ability to abide in the risen Lord’s abiding Presence, by continually filling themselves with Holy Spirit’s Presence. We must all practice the art of always seeking to ‘hear His Voice’ so we can know His heart and receive His constant direction. What we’ll be sharing will also come from our combined years of pondering Scripture, observing and interacting with scores of other believers, and the personal experiences we gained from our combined personal interaction with our indwelling Lord.

On this website, unless otherwise indicated, we’ll use the New American Standard Bible translation (NASB) and, at times, the Tree of Life (TLV) version, the Amplified Version (AMP), and a few others, as found on www.BibleGateway.com throughout this website. As we share quotations, we will identify the version we’re using. And we will insert and indicate our own amplifications and points of emphasis into the Bible texts whenever this is done.]

 

When our first parents fell into the state of Sin and mortality, Creation was corrupted and mortally damaged. All of this was due to the arrogant pride and rebellion of some of God’s spiritual beings. We call them ‘fallen angels’. They refused to acknowledge that their Creator is Supreme Lord over all other things that exist, including themselves. And after the fall of the first two humans devastated the human race, these angelic and demonic entities work ceaselessly to keep all humans imprisoned and enslaved within their rebellion against God. So this is what is behind that cosmic conflict that has raged continually ever since. The conflict is sometimes called, ‘the War of the Seeds’ :

 

So because of the enormous fatal damage Sin inflicted on Creation, through the fall of the human race into the states of Sin and Mortality, we humans are now possessors of a terribly damaged, distorted, mutated and twisted nature. No longer are we what God originally created the human race to be. We now have a strong innate tendency and desire to rebel against God and His Authority over us, and live radically independent lives of our own, assuming we have a right to be our own gods. That of course makes us enemies of God and it dooms us to be deprived of fellowship and eternal life with Him. Nevertheless, He does give us a chance to undergo a radical change of heart and has made a way for us to return to Him, withdraw our allegiance from His angelic and human enemies, begin to follow and live as one with His Living Word and Holy Spirit. But whoever refuses His offer for Salvation and Restoration and enters eternity in that rebellious state of enmity toward God, will be allowed to have the desires of his or her heart. And such people will be judged by God and doomed to eternal separation from Him and the inexpressible desolate state such separation will always entail.

 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God.” (John 3:16-21 NASB. Emphasis added.)

God has most certainly not given us up to eternal doom. In fact, He has already done everything necessary to make it possible for us to be fully reconciled and be fully restored to Blood Covenant union and friendship with Him. He wholeheartedly desires for every human to know that He refuses to leave His devastated Creation the way it is. His nature compels Him not only to create, and sustain and love everything He begins, but it also compels Him to correct, repair and fully restore and perfectly consummate whatever He has created. And this is why He has prepared the Way to Salvation for us all. Thus we can be fully delivered from the dismal fallen ‘sub-human’ state into which Sin and Death have plunged us all.

Through His Living Word made flesh, Yeshua, (Jesus), God has done everything necessary to completely regenerate and fully restore us according to His original Perfect Standards of Truth, Righteousness and Justice. So He’s continually reaching out to mankind, to get our attention and inform everyone about the wonderful good news of what He has done to reconcile and redeem and restore us back to the union with Him that He originally made us to have and enjoy with Him.

But this fallen, Humanistic, Self-adoring world and its systems, from the time we’re born, begins to deeply ‘hardwire’ our brains, and program our mental ‘onboard computers’, to believe, embrace and aspire to its man-centered, Self-adoring worldview values, priorities, agendas, and aspirations. These things defy, and oppose God’s revealed will, plan, and purposes. And that causes the tremendous conflict that rips and tears at the fabric of all of Creation! If it’s true that the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really and truly is the Creator and Supreme Lord of all things spiritual and physical, then as long as we continue to rebel and contradict Him, and think and choose in ways that are counter to His Truth and Ways, our rebellion creates a counter-polarity that prolongs and intensifies that terrible state of war that exists between the polarity of the spiritual forces of Darkness and the Polarity of God, the Creator, and His All-Authoritative Living Word!

This deadly War keeps God’s Creation captive within a terrible violent state of turmoil, destruction, devastation, and chaos. And as long as we remain part of what opposes God, we are condemned to be enslaved and manipulated by God’s demonic enemies. Therefore, all we’ll be able to look forward to for all of eternity, will be total eternal failure, frustration, and desolation!

“Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; with hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; yet you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19 NASB.)

The Anti-God rebellion, and its  counter-polarity, doom the unredeemed world to total frustration and eventual failure. Our fall into Sin and Mortality prevent Creation from working properly and producing the gloriously beautiful and fruitful results that its Designer and Creator intended for it to produce. So the human societies of this fallen world have become like an enormous Machine, made up of myriads of parts that are bent and misaligned and no longer work in synchronized unity with each other. And as long as this state of conflict and contradiction continues, and the misaligned machine continues to operate, the bent, misaligned parts will continue to clash, collide, and tear into each other, doing more and more damage, and creating more and more failure, frustration, disappointment and rage!

And this is why it’s so essential for every one of us to hear and obey the voice of our Creator, God’s Living Word made flesh, and embrace Him and allow Him to save us from ourselves and redeem, regenerate, reconfigure, and restore us to what God originally intended us to be. The more we humans remain under the delusion that each one of us has a right to be gods unto ourselves, and to assume that ‘Man is the measure of all things,’ this world will continue to be like an insane asylum that is run entirely by the deranged inmates.

 

 

So where do disciples fit into all of this? Well, we are chosen by God to assist and expedite His World-redeeming Rescue Mission. This is why God’s Word chooses and summons us and separates us from our former places in this world. He set us apart,  and reserves us for His own personal service.

And this is why those of us who heed His call and step forward, ready to follow Him, need to receive some very specialized intense basic training that will enable us to successfully embark on, and complete, the awesome spiritual, mental and emotional Exodus trek we must make from the rebellious God-ignoring worldly mindsets and lifestyles we formerly embraced, and prepare our souls for a total transplanting of our personal root systems into brand new Ground of God’s choosing. We must be trained and equipped to learn to live and operate in total union with God and operate in intimate interactive oneness with His Living Word and Holy Spirit. In other words, our God must be free to live and work in us, for us, and through us. And in this way, God will be able to lead those of us who are His, along the path that will lead to Eternal Life and Friendship with Him, in His Eternal Kingdom, and live forever as God’s sons and full-fledged members of His personal Household!

This of course will require a complete renewal and upgrading of our brain wiring and mental programming. And that is what the training disciples undergo must install in each one of us. This will equip us to gain a firm grip on our new Heavenly Reality and sink roots into our new way of life and grow and multiply and reproduce like new good seed that has been sown into a well-prepared field.

Disciples receive a brand new Christ-compatible, God-approved Life and identity that empower us to live from a new, unprecedented, God-pleasing level of life. And this is why our training must install the appropriate thought, action, and reaction patterns that go with this new God-given Life, and its awesome ways. The new patterns for this New Life we must install, will equip us to allow God’s Spirit to make us to become as one with Christ. Then He will be free to live and operate within us and reveal Himself to the world, through us! This is how He can fulfill His Father’s will, and Plan on Earth, and make good on everything that His Father has revealed, commanded and promised to His Creation.

So the disciples’ basic training must enable new ‘recruits’ to understand why they must die to whatever they believed and thought they were, while they were part of this world and its anti-God systems. God’s Spirit is given to us to take us through a ‘resurrection-type process’, that frees us from the living death state into which we were born, and transfer us into the resurrection new life and identity and future destiny that await us as soon as we successfully absorb our training and identify fully with our indwelling Lord. So there you have it: this Follow Me Ministry Family is geared to help those our risen Lord has chosen to become part of His Last Days Invasion Force, by forming us all into His own, ever-growing and developing earthly Body:

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wary as serpents, and as innocent as doves. But be on guard against people, for they will hand you over to the courts and flog you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings on My account, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who are speaking, but it is the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you.”  (Matthew 10:16-20 NASB. Emphasis added.)

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never repay evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all people. 

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” DO NOT BE OVERCOME BY EVIL, BUT (because Christ lives in you, you’re now equipped to) OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD!“ (Romans 12:14-21 NASB. Amplification and emphasis added.)

God’s Spirit will be living in each disciple. He will teach, train, correct, discipline, encourage, fortify, and develop each of us to operate effectively, and to endure, persevere, and even thrive amid the pall of intense demonic Darkness that will increasingly envelop this fallen world in the days to come. We must master the art and tactic of resisting and ‘swimming against the current’ of all worldly polarity. We’ll do it only if we master the art of being absolutely sure that God dwells within us and of allowing Him to live and work from within us. Everything will be done by Christ’s Love Power and Absolute Authority. His Spirit is filling us with God’s Omnipotent Love Power. So, through the obedience of our faith and personal submission to, and trust in Him, He will be the Fire Power that will blast through and overcome all demonic opposition!

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. 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!‘” (Emphasis added.) (See also John 5:19;30.)

Ponder what the Lord Jesus says to those who choose to follow Him, as His disciples:

Matthew 10:34-39

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his (unbelieving) father, and a daughter against her (unbelieving) mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the (unbelieving, anti-Messiah) members of his household. “He who loves (prefers to follow and obey) father or mother more than Me (God’s Living Word) is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.  He who has found his (worldly, radically independent, self-) life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” (Amplification added.)

Beloved, are these not the strongest, most uncompromising words you’ve ever seen or heard? Do any of us have the wisdom or the strength to live at such an exalted level? No, obviously not! But God isn’t saying that this is what we must try to do; He is promising that this is what He Himself will do from within us, through His Holy Spirit’s Power! God’s Holy Spirit filled and energized the Humanity of God’s Living Word at all times. And He enabled the Sin-less Humanity of our Messiah to live this way, on every level, throughout His days on Earth. And the Spirit of God is here, through our faith, to impart that same God-obedient, Messiah-embodying lifestyle, to those of us that have agreed to follow Him. God’s Holy Spirit is the promised New Covenant Gift from God! He will empower and motivate us to live in perfect alignment with His Presence and Nature working from within us. And in our name, He will fulfill all that  is written in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation!

John 3:30

“He (God’s living Word made flesh abiding within me) must increase, but I (in my strong tendency to think and live as a radically independent agent) must decrease!” (NASB. Amplification and emphasis added.)

We follow this unique ‘He must increase’, and ‘I must decrease’ , guideline, in response to the Absolute Authority that we acknowledge that God’s Living Word, our Creator, truly has over us. We do whatever we can to make His indwelling Presence welcome, so He can  fulfill the purpose our Heavenly Father entrusted to this ministry. Our purpose is to enhance and protect the spiritual growth and wellbeing of His beloved Son’s serious Last Days Body on Earth… namely, His other followers who are now our brothers and sisters in the Faith. And since we have all been called to serve as the Lord’s disciples, then, for our Master to truly be able to increase in us… all worldly attachments that we’ve been in the habit of placing above Him… must fade out of our personal priority systems and lifestyles. God’s Spirit must be free to fashion each member of this Body into a New Covenant manifestation on Earth of God’s beloved resurrected Son. And we must actually become His Body, 100% of the time, and not that of any other!

Colossians 3:3-4

“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God! When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.” (Emphasis added.)

This call to follow and abide at all times with our Master, as His disciples, is the most unique and exclusive lifestyle imaginable. It is also difficult to maintain and continue to develop, given the determined Anti-Christ, or Anti-Messiah spirit that grips the fallen world by the throat!

We urge you to take sufficient  time to absorb and digest the meaning embedded within God’s written Word. And, if you use these meditations as tools to help you do this, they’ll provide some of the massive repetition your brain and nervous system will need… for God’s Word to sink into the deepest regions of your innermost being, and ‘wire in’ and develop a strong, deep root system in your heart of hearts. We recommend that you prayerfully take these meditations to heart and digest and discuss them with your fellow disciples so you can all encourage and assist each other in your preparations for future combat with our demonic enemies.

Because of the underlying disciple-life issues, and because the attitudes, mentality, and spirit of this fallen world are so opposed to God’s Living and written Word, we must face and dig into these discipleship issues now, as God gives us the time and opportunity to do so. Beloved, once we’ve entered eternity, we’ll no longer be able to change anything! We will forever be what we chose to be, while we were still running our earthly race. So God warns and requires us to exercise the free will He gave us and use the time He allots to us wisely. You must choose what you will be and whom you will serve and what you will end up having… before you cross the Finish Line of your earthly journey.

In like manner, even before we are transferred into Eternity by our Commander, even now, while we are in training, we must remember that we are training for battles that we are not yet in. The training has to take place in advance, before the bullets and shells start whizzing in the air and wreaking havoc and destruction. I say this because, once the actual combat begins, it will be too late to learn what you need to learn and practice and develop skills you do not yet have. All of that must have already been accomplished while you had time to train and prepare yourself. So, once the actual warfare erupts across the horizon, you’ll be stuck with what you have, what you know, and the actual state of how much progress you made up to that point. And if you’re actually unprepared and not yet fully equipped, you will be one of the casualties! So make sure that does not happen. Apply yourselves; don’t waste your time; help one another; and get ready to endure, persevere, and overcome with and in, and from, your risen Lord!

Please know that we’re committed to help you in any way we possibly can, as you go through your very important pre-combat preparation time. If you need to communicate with us, you can email us through the ‘Contact’ section on this website. We’re available to communicate with you by email or by Zoom connections as the needs arise. And we encourage and urge you to open your heart to God’s Spirit and resolve to obey and cooperate with Him in the days to come, so that He can finish the beautiful work He is sent by our Heavenly Father to do in you, and through you!