When Jesus walked this earth He called His disciples, He
walked physically and He called them and He said to them: Follow Me. They
physically followed Him, they walked after Him and they spent three years with
Him during which time He taught them His ways and His Words and they got to
know Him. Today Jesus also calls us but He is not physically here on this
earth. Before Jesus left He said: I will send you the Comforter, He says it is
good that I go away because if I don’t go away the Comforter cannot come. But I
will ask My Father and He will send you the Comforter and that is the Holy
Spirit. And Jesus sent His Holy Spirit the Comforter to be with us until He
comes.
Jesus calls us today and He promised His Holy Spirit to
every one who follows Him so that we can be guided by the Holy Spirit. If we
don’t have the Holy Spirit we cannot be guided. Acts 2:38. Peter said to them
on the day of Pentecost, repent and let each of you be baptized for the
forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The
gift of the Holy Spirit is given in order to guide us every day to teach us. It
is the voice of Christ inside of us. He is not physically here anymore. But
Jesus does not live in temples build of stone and mortar He lives inside of the
Body of Christ, inside of us. All humans were made that way so that God can
inhabit us, can come and live in us and He lives in us by His Spirit if we
invite Him into our lives. Hence we are guided by the Holy Spirit, if we listen
and that is where the problem comes. People refuse to be guided by the Holy
Spirit. Many people repent of their sins, maybe they are baptized and then it
stops there and then they start getting educated, they get a Bible and they
start reading the Bible and now they say they are Christians, disciples, they
are not.
The only way that you can be a disciple is if you are guided
by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 10:27 “My sheep know My voice and they
follow Me.” Many people say: Well I don’t hear the voice of God! The reason for
that is that they haven’t learned to hear the voice of God. How does it happen
that God starts speaking to you? Jesus said in John 14:21-23 “ He
that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he
that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest Myself to him.” Many people say: But Jesus is not speaking to me! but
they are not even following His commandments, they are not obeying His
commandments. So how do they expect
God to speak to them if they have sin
in their lives? Many Christians are battling with sin. If you know what is
right, it is written in the scripture and your conscience and the Holy Spirit
confirm it to you the Holy Spirit is constantly convicting you of sin,
righteousness and judgment but you don’t want to listen. You say I know what I
should do but I am not doing it. And now you expect God to be talking to you
when you are willfully sinning and not doing what is right, then you are not a
disciple my friend. If we do things like that then we are totally disobedient
and we cannot expect God to talk to us.
If we do not accept Jesus as our King and our Lord then we
are not part of His Kingdom, we are just obstinate, disobedient. A disciple is
a willful slave of Christ, a disciple is a person who made up his mind and he
put himself on a cross. He is presenting himself to Jesus as living sacrifice
so that Jesus can use him. He has made up his mind; none of me, all off Christ,
we cannot part time God. If you want to be a disciple, a practical disciple my
friend you need to crucify yourself, crucify the flesh. Obey Jesus Christ,
repent of your sin and obey Jesus commandments; then only can you ask Him to
speak to you. If you want to hear God speaking to you, first obey the
commandments do what is right. He will
speak to you if you come closer to Him. He said: draw closer to Me and I will
draw closer to you, we need to seek Jesus in prayer continuously and He will
reveal Himself to us. We cannot evaluate ourselves we are so prejudice about
ourselves and our own condition that we cannot see our own mistakes so we
must ask the Holy Spirit to search us
and guide us into righteousness. And then I must obey, listen to the Holy Spirit
and He will make me suitable. How can God use us if we are not interested in
His Kingdom, He cannot.
To be a disciple means to make up your mind and die for
yourself. I hear a lot of Christians say yes it is a gradual process. Don’t let
it take too long! Jesus is coming my friend and if you are till undecided you
are going to stay behind, because you never made up your mind to follow Christ.
Jesus said: he who so ever wants to come after Me must immediately deny
himself, pick up his cross daily and follow Me. There is no gradual process. If
we follow Jesus we just drop everything and follow Him. We become a disciple
right from that day onwards. Christ wants everything of us. You don’t get into
heaven by just believing in Christ, only disciples go there, people who have
died to themselves and have given everything to Jesus and committed themselves
to Christ. My friend Jesus is coming and if you are not ready you are going to
be left behind. I am warning you, make up your mind now, seek Jesus now, lay down
yourself, seek Him with all your heart maybe, maybe you will be found worthy.
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