38 Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them. They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”39 “Come and see,” he said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. 41 Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”). 42 Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John—but you will be called Cephas” (which means “Peter”).
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” 44 Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.
45 Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” “Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.
47 As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Israel—a man of complete integrity.” 48 “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”49 Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!”
50 Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.”
Matthew 4:19 Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”
observation
The invitation is open, “Come, follow me” Jesus call to his soon to be disciples is the main message of Christianity, that’s the simplicity of the gospel, nothing difficult to understand but the following part could get hard sometimes nevertheless with great excitement the disciples leave behind their old lives and follow Jesus.
Don’t think too deeply on this question, the obvious answer is the correct one, how did the disciples follow Jesus? The answer is his disciples followed him daily.
Luke 9:23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.
They followed Jesus when he preached the Sermon on the Mount and everybody liked him.
They followed him when the tension in the room was to the max as the Pharisees were trying to trap him in his words in order to kill him.
When John the Baptist was beheaded there could have been some second thoughts about continuing to follow.
They continued to follow him after Jesus had to slip away from an angry mob.
They followed him when the weather was bad and they thought that they would die in the middle of a lake.
They kept on following him when they came to the end of a long day of teaching and healing and they had to spend the night out under the stars, wondering what they could find for breakfast.
They still followed him when all the lepers came around and even when the demon possessed guys started showing up, you know that would make the temptation to go home look like a real good option.
They followed Jesus before they even fully understood what he was here to do, he hadn’t yet paid for their sin debt by dying on the cross, they didn’t comprehend all that but they still followed.
You don’t usually hear about the human emotions that the disciples felt day to day as they continued to follow him. They were just ordinary guys with fears and frustrations and temptations, they had ordinary childhood experiences but they still decided on a daily basis to wake up and continue to heed the call, “Come, follow me” each day was filled with struggles that most of us will never experience, each day there were no conveniences not a hint of luxury. They had no reason to believe that they would be allowed into the synagogue, they had abandoned their career with no guarantee that they could go back to work and maybe people wouldn’t buy fish from someone that was tossed out of the synagogue. How many of us would have kept on going every day for three years?
It’s not much for Jesus to ask me to take up my cross daily and follow him.
application
I will take up my cross everyday and make a conscience decision to follow Jesus. I will quote Jesus when he said “Come, follow me” as a means to start a conversation about the gospel.
prayer
I need to be bolder as I follow you Lord. I pray that i will not grow weary in living for you.
