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(A printable version of this article is available here as a PDF)

Introduction

Many Christians understand that they are called to follow Jesus, but what do we think following Jesus looks like? This article is partly autobiographical: as a child and young adult, I came across these three perspectives on the Christian faith; at the time, I gained a great deal from each one, but I have come to believe this has a wider significance for the Christian community.

We will be starting from three very familiar passages; they have been chosen largely because they are both familiar and significant, but these truths can be found, equally clearly, in many other passages.

Three Perspectives

Words

Christians has traditionally referred to the Bible as the ‘word of God’, even while recognising that Jesus is the true, complete and final Word.

Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, NASB)

I like the way The Message puts it.

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, The Message)

When Moses talks about ‘these commandments’, he is not just referring to the 10 commandments, or even to all 613 commandments of the Torah. The Hebrew talks, not about ‘these commandments, but about ‘these words’.

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. (Deuteronomy 6:6, NASB)

The requirement placed upon God’s people here is to hear, understand and obey God’s words. Not just instructions to follow, not just rules to obey, but the words of God, so that we may get to know Him.

The words of God are holy, because God is holy; you study them and meditate upon them because He gave them to you, and because you get to know Him through them. The words of God are life-giving, and life preserving. As Jesus told us:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (Matthew 7:24, NIV)

You can start studying the Bible simply by comparing different translations; this will generally raise questions, which leads you into an exploration of the meaning of the text, as you seek to understand the words used, and the context into which the words were given.

The bad news is that studying the Bible requires consistent, hard work. The good news is that this work, this genuine attempt to understand what God has said, this consistent engagement with God’s words, is transformative. It is in this work, the struggle to understand what He is saying, that you meet with God.

The danger is that we focus on studying and understanding God’s word to the exclusion of the other things we are called to do. Study alone will produce dry academic knowledge, spirituality which is empty of life and love, doctrine which is pure but powerless.

The word of God is only properly transformative if you engage with it with the aim of putting it into practice. We are repeatedly warned about the dangers of being only ‘hearers of the word’, people who fail to obey. The promise, as Jesus told us, is that ‘everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice’ has their life changed.

Works

So what does it mean to put God’s word into practice? The answer, the consistent answer we are given in the Bible, is very simple.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31, NIV)

Jesus is quoting, of course, from the passage we have just read in Deuteronomy 6. This is one of the best-known passages in the Old Testament: every one of His hearers would have instantly recognised it. It is called the ‘Shema’, a prayer that is found at the centre of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services; it is the central affirmation of faith for the Jewish people, and it is often the very first section of Scripture that a Jewish child learns.

But He also quotes from another passage, found in Leviticus 19, and buried among instructions about gleaning and when to eat the peace offering, and what to make your clothes out of, Jesus picks the gem: ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.

The message of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is love. Jesus preaches the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and at the centre of this Kingdom is love. We are told to love our enemy, love our God, our neighbour and ourselves, even to love one another. We are to love the strangers who come to live among us, we are to love the widows and orphans, we are to love the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.

In obedience to this, Christians through the centuries have not only worked to demonstrate God’s love, but they have created organisations in order to to undertake this work more consistently and more effectively. They have changed unjust laws, protected children, promoted third world development, made the world safer, healthier and happier.

Almost every major charity started life as a bunch of Christians putting the love of God into action. Our Probation Service started about 150 years ago as a project of the Church of England Temperance Society. Until the NHS came along, our hospitals had mainly been established by monks providing hospitality to those who needed it, and caring for those who came to them, as a demonstration of God’s love.

It is frightening how much that we take for granted, what we assume is normal in a civilized society, flows directly from the ministry of Jesus and the early Church – and it is frightening how little we recognise that connection. I could talk all morning about the astonishing ways in which our society has been transformed by Christians putting the love of God into practice.

But it is possible, if we focus only on God’s love, that we forget the source of this love. As we work to help people, we attract others who also want to help, but don’t share our beliefs and motivation. Christian projects become, in time, Christian in name only, and often not even in name.

The YMCA began 180 years ago. In celebrating this anniversary, its website says, “we reflect on our rich history of community service, youth empowerment, and social impact.” It says nothing about its Christian origins, or the fact that it used to be called the “Young Men’s Christian Association”.

As followers of Jesus, we are to love everybody, everywhere, but especially those close to us; and we are to take this message and practice of love to the ends of the earth. So how can we do this? How do we prevent the social action prompted by the gospel from turning into a powerless thing we sometimes call the ‘social gospel’?

Wonders

The answer, of course, is provided by Jesus. His ministry was restricted to the Children of Israel, but He told His followers to take this message and practice of love to the ends of the earth, as we are told in the continuation of Luke’s Gospel.

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. (Acts 1:4-9, NIV)

Instructions don’t get any more significant than this: it is the very last thing Jesus says to His disciples before leaving them. And He doesn’t say, as we might expect, “Over to you – get on with it!” They have a big job in front of them, possibly the biggest job anyone has ever been faced with, and the final, counter-intuitive command Jesus gives them is… don’t do anything. Just wait.

Astonishingly, given their track record, they obey Him.

They wait. We’re not really sure how long they wait for. They spend some time in prayer and, apart from choosing a twelfth apostle to replace Judas, nothing really happens. But they stay together anyway.

And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon them, and nothing was ever the same again.

The early Church was transformed by the presence, the inspiration, the direction, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Over the centuries, the Spirit’s presence in the Church faded into the background – with a few notable exceptions – but then the modern Pentecostal movement was born 120 years ago, and this has touched or directly created almost all the growing congregations in the world today.

It is wonderful that today we are able to enjoy the presence of God in our meetings; we can enjoy Spirit-filled and Spirit-led worship, and discover afresh something of the fear and wonder He brings. But God wants to do so much more.

As John Wimber used to explain, our church services are God’s classroom: we are to come together to learn, and learning involves practice, so that we are able to put what we have learned into practice outside the church services, in everything we do for the rest of the week.

We pray for our fellow members of the congregation to know God’s presence and healing and provision, partly because we need it, but mainly because we need to be praying for our friends and neighbours and family and work colleagues to know God’s presence and healing and provision. We learn on the job, we learn by doing it.

And we need to be walking in the Spirit, every day, not just for the healing and prophecy and words of knowledge and the other things we associate with the Spirit’s presence.

We also need to be walking in the Spirit as we study our Bibles, listening to the Spirit’s prompting, telling us not only what this passage means, but also how to live it, how to love people in ways which reveal the character of God. As Jesus tells us:

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16, AV)

Good works are always worth doing. But, if it’s just you doing good works, people will probably be grateful; they will very probably think you are a good person; they will admire you and what you are doing, but it won’t make much difference to them.

But if you allow the Spirit to work through you, people will notice. They will notice because there is something special about the effect of the Holy Spirit on peoples’ lives; He is able to touch hearts as well as bodies. He doees more than we ourselves are able to do. And when people recognise that you could not have done this, then they see that God is involved, that God is in this place, is present here and now; and they begin to understand that the God Who made the universe has reached out and shown His love to me. And something of Heaven has come to Earth.

It’s All Three

So we have three different perspectives on what it means to follow Jesus. Different people tend to focus on different aspects, whether it is doctrine, or caring for people, or encountering God, and they tend to get together with others who see the Christian life in similar ways.

But, whatever you personally may prefer, whatever your church or tradition may focus on, Jesus is very clear that all three of these perspectives matter. If you want to follow Jesus, if you accept Him as your Lord, then you must listen to Him, you must hear and understand His words; you must put His words into practice, and demonstrate His love to everyone, the way He tells you to; and you must know that you cannot do any of this on your own, it all depends on the presence, the guidance and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are not allowed to choose here – if we want to follow Jesus, we have to do things His way and fully embrace all three: the words, the works and the wonders.