July 16 Devotion: The Simple Truth of Following Jesus

Matthew 9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

         There is not a lot of fanfare found in this verse; no mountain moving, no lightning from heaven, no signs and wonders. Jesus simply gave an invitation to Matthew to change the direction of his life and Matthew obeyed. Now, there are many things that took place there that day in the life of Matthew, (there are many doctrinal truths that take place in salvation) but God chose to give only one verse to describe it and that was all Matthew recorded. That would seem to be too simplistic to the minds of the majority. There should be more to it, they would say. But faith is not a truth of fanfare. Instead, it is a truth of simply believing God and acting accordingly. The Bible describes it as childlike faith.  

Matthew 18:2-4

2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,

3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

         What happened to Matthew is childlike in its simple innocence. He humbly trusted Christ completely and knew whatever Christ wanted him to do would be right. That fact caused him to leave his old life behind and follow Christ wherever he led. You can add a lot of complications and stipulations to that if you like, but it is really that simple. Now it may be hard to do because of our natural pride, but it is still that simple. Following Christ is acknowledging that he should lead and that we should follow him. Simple faith doesn’t need to question where God is leading, it just needs to faithfully follow. Faith is trusting who Christ is, trusting what he has done, and trusting in what he wants to do in our lives. If the “just shall live by faith”, (Romans 1:17) then following the direction God leads is the way we should live. That’s what Matthew did and this simple verse is given to us for an ensample. (Philippians 3:17)

In Christ’s Service,

Bro. Adrian Moore

2 Cor. 4:5