The Journey Part 1/4

NEWSONG: Dirty and Left Out by The Almost off the CD Southern Weather

VERSE: Mark 1:17
“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’”

THOUGHTS:
We all want to go on journeys, we want to go to somewhere new, to see something new, believe something new, and do something new. This longing isn’t something that simply stems from our flesh and our earthly longing to see more of the world, but is a wonderful and perfect spiritual longing to go somewhere different with God. To grow closer to Him.

“I want to take a trip,” I said to my God. “I’ll take you there,” He says back to me.

The Christian life is one that is constantly developing. It is a journey. I love the way Kyle Stobel puts it in his book Metamorpha: “Merely doing church in a new way or deconstructing all of the structures that we think are hindering us will not help us get closer to God. There is room for those things, but our task has to be more fundamental: we have to be about becoming something new.” Becoming something new.

Maybe I have gone too fast at the start. You are probably asking yourself: A journey, why is my spiritual life a journey? What does that mean? And, how do I really go on this journey? The first question is the most basic and most important because it sets the foundation for the rest of your life, worldview, and whole self. Why is my spiritual life a journey? Well, bluntly, because Jesus said it was. Jesus came down to this earth in the business of changing lives, breaking down worldviews, and growing people closer to Him. “Jesus asks converts to count the cost, which includes having their story changed . . . if we affirm that the Christian life is developmental, we must be willing to walk the path for growth to which Jesus calls us,” says Strobel.

What does that mean? It means that Christ went on this journey, He loves us and wants us to follow Him. How amazing would it be to go on a journey through some remote wilderness, knowing that the person leading you has an intimate knowledge of everything around you. How much more safe would you feel knowing that even if there are rough times along the way, that you will make it and everything will be better as soon as you get through. This Christian life is a journey, called by Christ, to walk through a jungle. A journey to walk through some of the most dangerous, scary, and dark situations, but a journey not walked alone. We really have the fearless leader, the Indiana Jones, the Bear Grylls (the guy from Man v. Wild), the ultimate jungle guide to follow. What does that mean? It means we are to get up, and follow Him, period.

But how are we to go on this journey? I don’t think I can do it? I don’t think I am suited to do this journey thing well? Neither am I, neither were the disciples, neither is anyone else. In Mark we see an instance when Jesus calls out to Simon and his brother Andrew, he says to them “Come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” The next verse doesn’t say, “then Simon and Andrew thought about it, they packed up their nets and brought them along, just in case this Jesus thing didn’t work.” It simply says, “at once they left their nets and followed Him.” We don’t need to bring anything to go on this journey, nothing from our previous life. Strobel tells us, “this is the equipment you’ll need for the journey: the Bible, the Spirit, and a community of believers.” We go with Christ’s help, with His word, and with His Spirit in us. Not alone but with a great “cloud of witnesses” to walk with us along our journey.

If you are still feeling insufficient for the journey ahead let me leave you with this encouragement: “Journeying well doesn’t necessarily mean knowing the directions or understanding what it means to walk; it means being informed by the one who knows these things.”

We are all going to experience bumps, we are all going to step out of the footsteps of Him who leads us--but we all must end up somewhere new, somewhere that He is taking us. We don’t have to know the directions, we just have to be willing to follow His set of directions, fully knowing that we may not always think they are right.

Are you ready to have your way of seeing, believing, and being broken and destroyed along the way? Because that’s what he wants to do. But he also wants to build it back up into something new, something beautiful, something holy.

Are you ready to go on a journey? Are you really ready? Are you man enough? If so then lets go . . . lets take a journey.