One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers — Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew — throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living.
Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”
And they left their nets at once and followed him. Matthew. 4:18-20 NLT
A group of young men, undoubtedly having been out all night fishing, were cleaning up their nets, and somebody said, “There’s that guy from Nazareth.” And Jesus walked up to them and said, “Follow Me.” And the rest of their lives were different. The man standing before him at the tax collector’s table looked Matthew in the eye and said, “Follow Me,” and Matthew’s life was never the same again.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? There were a lot of people following Him around. Why not? He was preaching good news, healing people, and passing out free lunches. It was exciting to see what He was going to do next, including telling off the high and mighty Pharisees. Who wouldn’t follow around a fellow like that?
Would I be wrong to suggest that that describes the religion of all too many so-called Christians today? Are we just spectators? As Christianity becomes less of a cultural thing, there are probably fewer of those, but there are still a lot of spectators, people who are in church fairly regularly, but who have never given Jesus any hold over them. They are along for the ride.
But when Jesus said to those men, “Follow Me” there was something more going on, wasn’t there? What is it to follow Jesus, really follow him?
Called To Be Transformed 