Choose the Extraordinary Life that God Has to Offer You!

In Luke 5:11, Luke tells us about one of Jesus’ first encounters with Peter, James and John. After hearing Jesus teach and seeing him miraculously fill their nets with fish, these fishermen “left everything and followed him.” Now think back to the initial occasion when you decided to follow Jesus Christ. What was going on in your life? In what ways did Christ change your life?

I first surrendered my life to Christ as a four-year-old child and grew up in a Christian home. But when I was 19 I realized my Christian life was stale. I was focused on me and my performance for God. At that time I attended Bible college, but had to leave after a semester for lack of funds. Even at Bible college I was running with the wrong crowd. I knew and said all the right things, but my relationship with God was shallow. I was a phony.

In order to pay off my school debt, I took a job in a warehouse in Minneapolis. The job and the conditions in which I worked were awful, but God had me where I needed to be. While there I met two guys who had recently come to Christ out of the hippy movement. These guys were totally captivated by God! Their love for God showed in their love for each other and others. They devoured his Word, hungry to know God more deeply.

After watching these two guys for a couple weeks, I went home one night and fell on my knees before God. I told him through tears that I desperately wanted to know him like those two guys at work. I remember feeling a tremendous sense of awe and expectation. I knew that I had just stepped into a life-long adventure with God! And I soon began to see that adventure unfold before me. It has been a wild and challenging ride ever since!

But as with any true adventure, not everything goes as planned. “Stuff” happens! We meet with challenges, setbacks, failures, and obstacles of all kinds. I began to discover that my initial decision to follow Christ, though key, was not enough. In fact, I have to choose to follow him every day, because every day I’m confronted with choices to go my own way (the world’s way) or to follow Jesus.

What I’m talking about here is not merely my experience. This is a universal principle. Look at what Jesus told his disciples later on in Luke’s Gospel, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, emphasis mine) Life with Jesus Christ is truly extraordinary. It is the life for which we were made. And we must choose daily to pursue and follow him.

©2009 Rob Fischer