Tuesday, September 14, 2010

New Testament Tuesday #1

It's Tuesday, and its time to share what you have been learning in God's Word.  Well, we are only 2 days in to the reading of the New Testament but still, that is 7 chapters and there is alot of good stuff in those 7 chapters.  You can link up your thoughts at 4URuthie and check out everyone elses thoughts there also.

The reading yesterday was in the book of Matthew chapters 1-4.  I feel like the main verses that really "hit" me was in chapter 4 verses 18-22.  This is my paraphrase, except for direct quotes from Jesus.

Jesus is out walking by the Sea of Galilee and he sees 2 brothers.  Simon and Andrew, who were fishing with nets.  They were fishermen by trade.  Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
And here is the awesome part, well to me anyway. Verse 20, "And they IMMEDIATELY left the nets, and followed Him." 
So then this party is moving along and they see 2 more brothers, James and John.  They are out in the boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their nets.  Jesus calls to them.  I am assuming the same call, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 
And here it is again, in verse 22, "And they IMMEDIATELY left the boat and their father, and followed Him."

How many times have I read those verses and not gotten the IMMEDIATELY part?  They were called and there was an IMMEDIATE response.  Is my reaction time supposed to be any different than theirs was?  I don't think so.  Yet, I often say, "Not right now, the timing is bad." or "I don't know how to do that."  Excuses.  That is what I most often give IMMEDIATELY.  As a Christ follower I should be prepared to, uh well I don't know, hmmmm.... FOLLOW, at the first sound of the call.  Yep, this passage hit me hard and left me shaken.  I love it when He does that. 

Thank you, God for your Word and your Holy Spirit who guides us through it.  Thank you for your son Jesus who has called us to follow.  Please Lord Jesus, please help me to always, always follow you IMMEDIATELY.  Please remove any fears our doubts that I may have and help me to trust more in you. 
In your precious name.  Amen.

4 comments:

  1. That is good stuff Mo. You are so right. We tend to try and follow Christ on our time table. I would hate to miss seeing him move because I wouldn't say yes immediately. Thanks for the thoughts and for linking up.
    Love ya
    G

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  2. You don't know me, but I've been reading your blog. :) I'm looking forward to reading this with you and hoping to keep up with it.
    The thing that hit me the most was when Jesus was drawn away and tempted, the key to his strength was quoting scripture. He didn't pray; he didn't chat with others to get advice, he simply stated the truth. It is the TRUTH that will set you free. That's the importance of scripture memorization.

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  3. Katherine you are so right. It is important to stay grounded in scripture. I'm not very good at the memorization but I try. I'm glad you are joining me. Feel free to link up anything you put on your blog at my sister in laws blog! I know she would love to read your thoughts too!

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  4. It seems we learn something new each time we read the scriptures, even if we've read the same one multiple times! :)

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