Praying the sinner’s prayer is simply the start of our relationship and walk with the Lord.  It’s truly an incredible and powerful moment when we come to God by faith and receive His forgiveness for our sins but it shouldn’t and doesn’t end there.  We now need to follow Jesus daily.  But what does it mean to follow Jesus?

Matthew 16:24 says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Following Jesus daily comes down to the choices we make.  At every turn, we choose to walk in the Spirit or give in to the flesh.  Walking by the Spirit leads to life and giving in to the flesh leads to death.  The amazing truth we find in scripture is that God doesn’t leave us on our own to muddle through this and try to do it in our own might.  Instead, we have the Holy Spirit at work within us with His power to help us want to walk in God’s ways  and follow Him.  

It’s important to remember that God’s kingdom is completely opposite to the system of this world.  So it’s not always going to be easy to follow Jesus. Yet, because we belong to Him we must walk in obedience (eg: like forgiving others instead of seeking vengeance). We’re going to need to make hard choices to keep following Jesus BUT ultimately these will lead to life and blessing in our lives.  

So today, I want to challenge each one of us to truly count the cost of following Jesus and to make the choice daily to turn away from our flesh and following the world.  It’s so worth it because it leads to life and blessing!