Follow Me

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

“FOLLOW ME”

Luke 5:27-39

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." 34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."  36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" 

NIV

There are several great truths here, of course, every word spoken by Jesus is a great truth. The first, which is but two words, “Follow me”, carries a huge significance in every persons life. We know Levi better by the name of Matthew, who ended up writing a gospel of his own. However, when Jesus told Matthew to follow him, it did not just mean walk behind me. We are well aware of what it means to follow Jesus. Of course, we surely want to follow him to the place he has prepared for us in heaven, or rather in the kingdom of God. But then, we are already living in the kingdom of God. Both Mark and Luke record Jesus saying, “The kingdom of God is near”. The Greek word translated as near, carries the meaning of come near to you. However, as we are in Christ, and He is in us, the kingdom of God is at hand, as in, we are in it now, living under the rule of Christ. We once lived under the rule of the powers of this dark world, and the power of Satan, but we have abdicated our citizenship to this world, and became a citizen of the kingdom of God, following Jesus. When Jesus told Matthew to follow him, he got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. We know from history that tax collectors worked for the Romans, and as such, lived a fairly well-to-do life, for it was known they collected more tax than Rome required, and kept that extra for their own good lives. It is no wonder they were hated by their fellow Jews. However, Matthew left all that behind and not only follow Jesus, but invited him into his home, and threw a great banquet, inviting other tax collectors to meet Jesus. We have not been able to physically throw Jesus a great banquet in our homes, but we can give him a fantastic banquet in our hearts, as we follow him. In fact, we have offered our whole bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is our spiritual act of worship. Of course, we do not put ourselves on an altar to be slaughtered, but we offer ourselves to the service of God in His kingdom. That is, He is our Sovereign, our King, our Ruler and we serve at his pleasure. That, and much more, is what is all wrapped up in the response to the call of Jesus, “Follow me”.