Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.

Matthew 7:24-25 CSB

Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?

James 2:20 CSB

Jesus’ words as He closes the Greatest Sermon Ever in Matthew 7 are still as powerful 2000 years later as when He first spoke them. In an age where we are inundated with ‘important’ information, and where true personal transformation/growth is relegated to the back shelf, Jesus basically said that it’s not how much you know, but what you do with what you know that matters. Am I acting on the truth, the Scripture, the Spirit-leadings that I know? Or am I setting action aside for acknowledgement and academia? The crux of the matter is this: Discipleship is followership. Period. Discipleship is not knowledge, training, maturity, memorization, reading, classes, learning, or degrees. The disciple is simply a follower. 

Many in the western (North American?!?) church think that because they have been saved a long time and know the books of the Bible and have attended Sunday School since before they could talk and are sitting in the pew on Sunday AM that they are a disciple. It’s simply not (necessarily) true. The truth is that the person who just recently trusted Christ and is following with faltering yet obedient and faith-filled steps is sometimes more of a disciple than the person who has been saved 40+ years. How can this be? Because one is following and the other is not. True disciples – true followers – follow. They take steps toward/with Jesus on a regular/daily basis, even when those steps are halting, wondering, wandering, mustard-seed-kind-of-steps…

So, then the next question is: what does it look like to follow Jesus? We will dive more into this in the days ahead, but it begins with Matthew 7:24. What Jesus says I do. What is Jesus telling/asking me to do today? Obey. Do. Step. No matter how small. And enjoy the life of the Son, the presence of the Father, and the power of the Spirit as you follow Him.