Who Do You Follow?
Hi Everyone,
I am sharing a vision that the Lord just gave me. I have been seeking his counsel on a few things: about a ministry that I had recently begun with a friend, and about two important decisions regarding our family and finances. God asks us to seek him in all matters.
“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
Then, while praying to hear from the Lord, about what he would have me write, he gave me this vision:
The Vision
The Female Moose
In this vision I saw the backside of an very large but skinny animal, that I believe was a female moose, for there was no rack on her head. She took a few steps then turned her head to see who was following her.
A question came to mind: “Who do you follow?”
It is a very interesting question to propose to believers. If we are not following the Lord, then who do we follow?
On the internet, social media or YouTube, the site it will show how many followers someone has. It also will ask if we would like to follow a particular person or website. And we can respond with a like, or an affirming Yes or choose to be non-committal.
With the vision of a moose, the idea of foolishness is presented. Years ago, a children’s cartoon entitled “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” featured the adventures of a flying squirrel named Rocky and his less than wise companion, “Bullwinkle, the Moose.” Bullwinkle brought silliness and laughter to the cartoon’s dialog with his observations that were either erroneous or highly obvious, but always entertaining. So in the vision, to follow a moose, should be considered foolishness.
So the question remains: Who do you follow? Who do we follow? Are we so foolish as to not seek God, the creator of all the universe, the one who knows the beginning from the end? Do we instead seek man’s counsel with all his “worldly wisdom?”
In my last post, I shared the Lord’s comments concerning the Pharisees and scribes who He referred to as “blind guides.”
“Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” Matthew 15:14
The Lord instructed his disciples, to not follow them, for they are spiritually blind, and will only lead others to harm. The Pharisees and teachers of the law, should have been men of God, understanding the scriptures written about the Messiah and his purpose. But they were spiritually blind, and spiritually dead, because they could not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. Even with all the miracles showing the power of God right before their eyes, they did not honor him, or recognize his authority and power over nature and his relationship to God the Father. Instead, they were jealous of the attention and devotion that he received from the crowds that followed him.
So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” John 12:19
Let us not follow those who are puffed up, and prideful of their position, their wealth or their knowledge for..
“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5
If we follow those who oppose God with their arrogance and their desire to gain followers for themselves, then we will become like them. We certainly do not want to become prideful and arrogant ourselves, judging others to be inferior. God detests such attitudes. We need to be careful of the company we keep, even if it is only through the internet and television that we follow them.
The Bible should be our teacher, for it is the very words of God. The Holy Spirit who comes alongside us is our tutor.
He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you. Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you. John 16:14-15
The Holy Spirit is the revealer of truth. If we are seeking understanding and guidance, shouldn’t we seek the truth, not just the wisdom of the world?
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.” And again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 1 Corinthians 3:19-20
Sometimes following a man, as if he were God himself, only leads to problems, especially in the Church. The believers at Corinth were following men as if they were super stars or the Giants, or the Yankees, The Cubs or the Dodgers. But the idea is that often we become fans of a particular speaker or evangelist, pastor or teacher, and we think that their opinions are what really counts. But no, it is the Bible, the truth and God that matters. As we grow in the knowledge of God, we need to keep our relationship with him strong. We do not want to drift off into some tangent teaching that captures our interest, and we no longer are aware of the truth of God’s word. Too often people will accept the teachings of men and dismiss the words on the pages of the Bible. Many are unaware that the teaching conflicts with the Bible, and so they accept it as doctrine. When this occurs, our faith is tainted with untruths. In reality we have discarded truth for a humanistic teaching. Many teachings of the early church fathers were already compromised by their disconnect with the Hebrew prophetic texts and wooed by the political favor they received once Constantine, endorsed the church as the primary religion of the empire. Jesus, Paul, Peter and James all gave warnings about heresies that would be introduced as soon as they departed.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 2 Timothy 4:3
No. We need to wake up, and not follow man or some interesting teaching that captures our minds’ attention. We need to seek God for his answers.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13
“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” Jeremiah 33:3
Who do we follow? Do we follow our own deceitful hearts? Do we follow our desires, the desires of our sinful flesh? Do we indulge the flesh, and justify it saying “we deserve to treat ourselves?” Do we hide our real motives, and make them appear to be noble or altruistic?
God knows our hearts and our motives. Because our hearts are deceitful, we must ask the Lord to search our hearts just as David did:
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9
From the very beginning, people have had a sinful nature. After Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden it was not long before man showed how great his wickedness had become.
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. Genesis 6:5
Because of man’s wickedness, the Lord decided to start all over again, by bringing a destructive flood upon the earth. Even after the flood, man’s sinful nature continued to cause problems. The Lord’s solution was to send his son to reconcile man to himself. For those who turned away from sin and turned to God, He gave them an amazing gift: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells within each believer, so that now when we sin, we feel the conviction of wrong doing. The Holy Spirit gives us the desire to repent and to be restored to him. Without the Holy Spirit, we would have great difficulty overcoming our flesh and pleasing God.
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-11
Only the Lord saves, delivers and can keep us on the right road. I can’t imagine life without the Spirit. He intercedes with us, and through us, and for us.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27
So let’s ask the question again, “Who do you follow?” We should all want to say, I follow the one true God: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We serve a triune God. One God in three persons.
The word of God tells us that the Father seeks those who worship in Spirit and in truth.
Jesus had a revealing dialog with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
“Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.” John 4:19-26
When Jesus said that the Father is seeking worshipers who will worship the Father in spirit and in truth he was addressing two things: being in the Spirit and acknowledging the Truth.
When Jesus said, “you worship what you do not know,” he was referring to their misunderstanding of who God was. God was not made by human hands like a calf, or an idol covered in gold or silver. Jesus said, “God is spirit, and he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth.”
Today we have the same thing going on in our churches. People create in their minds’ eye a God of their own choosing. We have people who have given God the attributes that they would like him to have. He is a “God of love, one that is gentle and winks at sin.” They cannot accept the fact that God can also be a God of wrath, a God of judgment, a holy God, one who holds people accountable. They choose a God who accepts sexual immorality, and cheating, and lying. A God who automatically welcomes everyone into the kingdom of God. They believe that merely saying a prayer gives them a ticket to heaven, and even if they don’t say a prayer, they will say: “Jesus knows my heart. I am going to heaven.”
Jesus wants more than lip service. He is not simply a fire insurance plan. If we don’t know the word of God, then we really don’t know Him. If we have no fear of God, then we do not know him. The Pharisees denied the deity of Christ. Many religious groups will say Jesus was only a man, He was only a prophet. Some say he and Satan were brothers and that God sent them to earth when they had an argument. But without recognizing Jesus’ true identity as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, as the Son of God, as the Great I Am, and as the Lord Almighty, those who seek God, seek him in vain.
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:23
When Jesus said that the Father was seeking those who worship in spirit and in truth, He was defining who true worshipers are: those who acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah.
Jesus is the truth, and he gives the Spirit to those who believe that he is God in the flesh. The Spirit is given to those who acknowledge his death on the cross to pay for their sins. Without the indwelling Spirit it is impossible to worship in Spirit. For unless we are born again, our spirits are dead and unable to truly worship him.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! Ephesians 2:1-5
Jesus spoke of being born of the Spirit of God to a Pharisee named Nicodemus:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, and yet you people do not accept our testimony.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.” John 3:5-21
It is foolishness to follow anyone or anything other than the Lord Jesus. It is foolish to follow our hearts, which can lead us astray. It is foolish to believe that man or science has all the answers. Do we follow doctors, rather than follow the word of God and the creator who made us? The Lord promised the Israelites that if they listen to him, and did not serve idols or follow the practices of the pagan nations around them, then he would bless them.
So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take away sickness from among you. No woman in your land will miscarry or be barren; I will fulfill the number of your days. Exodus 23:25-26
If we follow the Lord he will take sickness from among us, and our food will be blessed. He will bless us with long life. Do you see that the Lord it is most concerned about our relationship with him. If we seek him we will find him. If we love him, he will deliver us from our troubles:
“Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him. When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.” Psalm 91:14-16
If we know him, we will be saved and spend all eternity with him. But Jesus warns us that if we do not know him, there will be a different outcome.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23
The Lord has given us this message to shake us up a bit, to not be complacent. He wants true worshipers. We need to know him, not just know about him. We are not here to build our own kingdoms, and please ourselves. He gave his life for us. Can’t we give him our love and devotion, not merely lip service?
Let’s spend time in his word to understand his heart and to know who he truly is. Let’s spend time in prayer so that he can speak to us personally and we can bare our hearts to him. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the hidden sins that even our hearts try to hide or justify.
We pray, “Whatever is hidden in darkness come to the light.”
All a man’s ways are pure in his own eyes, but his motives are weighed out by the LORD. Proverbs 16:2
So we depend on the word of God, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit to guide us:
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:12-13
So let’s follow Jesus, and not be swayed by the voices of the world, the voices of those who would draw us away from following him. Let’s agree with Joshua when he said:
“Choose this day whom you will serve…As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!” Joshua 24:15
Thanks for reading. Please share this post. Let’s pray and share the knowledge and love of God. Be blessed!
