SAYING ‘yes’ to Jesus is a familiar catchcry, but
what does it mean when we break past the niceties of cliché – which are, the
nod and ignore responses of a Christianity that is so far beyond being reached?
Saying ‘yes’ to Jesus is an action expressing the
single notion, “I follow you, Jesus, and I do what you say, even when I don’t like it.”
That is discipleship. It’s nothing more complicated
than that. What might be a continual test of our love, our resolve, our
patience, and our faith, is actually based out of quite a simple decision.
To follow Jesus is a decision.
By virtue of the decision we do what we have
decided to do. We act. Our faith has traction in the decisions we make that
align with what the Holy Spirit is leading us to do.
When we seek to answer the question, “How do I say ‘yes’
to Jesus?” we are often left with an altar call situation – saying ‘yes’ for
the first time.
But saying ‘yes’ for the first time is no different
than saying ‘yes’ the second time, or the third, the twenty-third, and the 907th.
The first time is just the first time. Not that it isn’t significant – of course
it is!
Saying ‘Yes’ With All the Earnestness of Our Conviction
There is no greater protection afforded any
individual person than this: to say ‘yes’ to Jesus by discerning and doing God’s
will.
Nothing will invoke the full power of the Holy
Spirit and avail the presence of God’s guardian angels more that seeking and
securing God’s will by acts of obedience.
We must obey aggressively, declaring war on our
disobedience.
Saying ‘yes’ with the earnestness of our full
conviction, by holding nothing of ourselves back, by casting all the things of
this earth into the chasm of oblivion; that is aggressive obedience of faith.
Glorious blessings of confident assurance, growth
and renewal are found in this: when we take God’s line, seeking the knowledge
of his will earnestly, and deploying his will sacrificially, then we begin to
comprehend the vastness of his nature of multiplicity – life expands
exponentially before us: New life.
This is how we say ‘yes’ to Jesus: we discern his
will and we do it.
***
The command of the Great Commission is to ‘make
disciples’, so we ought to be disciples so we can make disciples.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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