Dear #DailyFollowers,
When I was learning to study the Bible, a Bible Teacher once told me that if I read a verse and didn’t understand it, I might be missing some context. To get the missing context, I should take one step back to the verse before that verse.
He said to keep going back until you can make sense of the verse you need to understand.
I applied this principle to identify what biblical patriarchs and matriarchs knew about Jesus, which I need to know to make my following Jesus as productive and profitable as theirs.
I started at the call from call chronicled in Matthew 4:19 and Mark 1:17, which I wrote about in the letter, Follow Me, and I Will Make You…, from a few days ago, and that journey took me back to Genesis!
Yesterday, in The One Who Called Us To Follow, I shared that to know the One Who called us to follow in our quest to actively follow and be a part of what He’s doing and blessing, we need to learn about these three things:
Things said about Christ before His earthly ministry
Things Christ said during His earthly ministry
Things said about Christ after His earthly ministry
In this first piece about ‘Knowing Jesus’, I’ll start from the very beginning with things the Scriptures said about Him before His earthly ministry.
The Scriptures introduce the One who called us to follow right at the beginning of all things without calling Him Jesus or even explicitly telling us that a third Person was involved in creation besides God—the Father (Genesis 1:1) and God—the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2).
In Genesis 1:3-29, God—the Son, enters the creation scene as the words proceed out of the mouth of God—the Father, to manifest all His intentions in creation.
Nothing in creation exists without the God—the Son.
John, one of Christ’s first followers, helped us to understand this when he said in John 1:1-3, EXB:
1 In the beginning [Genesis 1:1] ·there was the Word [the Word already existed; the Word refers to Christ, God’s revelation of himself]. The Word was ·with [in the presence of; in intimate relationship with] God [the Father], and the Word was [fully] God. 2 He was ·with [in the presence of; in intimate relationship with] God in the beginning. 3 All things ·were made [were created; came to be] ·by [through] him, and nothing ·was made [came to be] without him [Proverbs 8:22–31].
So, the first thing worthy of note about the One Who called us to follow is:
He is the foundation on which all things exist.
Knowing this changed how I thought about my life.
The first shift in my thinking system:
I exist for a specific purpose because the One who created me created me for a purpose.
When I came to this realisation at that point, my understanding of the purpose of my existence wasn’t as refined as it is today.
Yet, I wholeheartedly believed that Christ created me for a specific assignment. This belief raised new questions, leading me to dig deeper into the Scriptures for answers.
One of the questions that came up was:
If there is a specific purpose to my existence, what was it, and what should I be doing about this purpose?
As I thought deeply about this question, I realised that my desire to get going, to do something to make something out of my existence, was once more in overdrive.
I felt God calling me to slow down and spend more time in Genesis 1:3, EXB; much more precisely, He was prompting me to stay on these three words in that verse:
3 Then God said
As though someone was speaking to me, I heard this question asked:
What are you saying?
The thought that followed was, “Before you run off thinking about what you need to be doing to either find purpose or live purposefully, you need to lock down what you’re saying about yourself.“
At this time, my opinions about myself depended on what was happening to me or my prevailing emotions.
Hence, the next shift that followed the change in my thinking system was a movement in my speaking system. I learned that:
My words about me must align with what the One who created me SAID, IS SAYING, and WILL YET SAY about me.
Now, with this understanding, I felt a release to God, and I went back to Matthew 4:19, EXB, and Mark 1:17, EXB, because there, I knew I would find the final piece of the shift I needed to take the right actions to be a faithful and active follower.
It also contains things Jesus said during His earthly ministry.
19 Jesus said, “Come ·follow me [be my disciples], and I will ·make you [teach you how to] ·fish for people [fishers of men].”
17 Jesus said to them, “Come ·follow me [be my disciples], and I will ·make you [teach you how to] fish for people.” - Mark 1:17, EXB
Rereading this, I felt God leading me to lean into just these four words in the verses:
I will ·make you
Thankfully, the Expanded Bible version explains what "make” means in this context: to teach you how to.
This is the final shift I share today, a shift in my doing system:
I have a “how to” that’s open-ended, a blank check that provided access to every capability I needed to partner effectively with Him and execute my part in His agenda.
Putting it all together, long before the manifested Christ came to call us to follow Him:
God created us all things and humans for specific purposes that fit into advancing His agenda,
God created all things and humans through His Son, and all things spoken resulted in manifesting creation as in the mind of God and
God provided a means through which all created things can fulfil their call to be a part of His agenda.
Knowing this about Christ enabled me, and I believe it will also allow you (once you meditate on the Scriptures shared in this newsletter) to create these systems that empower my quest to follow Jesus differently:
Thinking: Seeing myself as a purposeful being even before I start doing purposeful things.
Speaking: Declaring my purposeful existence before manifesting my purposeful living.
Doing: Living purposefully is a function of following Christ, who teaches me how to do purposeful things that advance God’s agenda.
Isn’t it interesting that God bears much responsibility in the follow-and-make equation?
All He asks of us is to make ourselves available to follow. Are you available?
I would love to hear from you, so please share your thoughts in the comments section.
Yours faithfully,
John - One #DailyFollower