FOLLOW ME

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 4:19 (NIV) ¹⁹ “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”

There is always someone in the lead. We are forever following someone at any given time: parents, teacher, police, politician, traffic, ministers, etc. And all too often, as in my case, it’s following the wrong people: people that only lead to alcoholism, drug addiction and prison. That was my path for 25 years of my life.

When I finally surrendered to His grace and accepted Him as my Lord, I didn’t trust the writers of the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I thought they were just “con-men” merchandising Christ for a profit so I ignored them and only read the “red parts” (the words of Jesus). It’s amazing to me now that I can preach a home-run sermon and everyone is dazzled by my eloquence for an hour or two but Jesus’ recorded words only take 3 hours to read and 2,000 years later we are astounded by this unfathomable wisdom and insight!

And all He asked his disciples to do was, “Follow me.” Sublime simplicity!

This begs the question: “What does following Him mean?”

• When you follow Him you are separated unto him.
• When you follow Him you leave others.
• When you follow Him you abide with Him.
• When you follow Him you obey Him.
• And when you follow Him you believe Him implicitly.

Now on this fishing thing: I only went fishing with a case a beer and no worms before I met Him and now I go to the supermarket and do my fishing in the fish department!

But fishing for men has become my full-time vocation and I might add avocation. If I’m not fishing, I am out of the water and about to dry up and die. I have since noticed some parallels between “fishers of fish” and “fishers of men” I thought you might be stimulated to think about.

A fisherman is dependable and trustworthy.

He is diligent and persevering.

His own very words will “scare the Hell out of anyone!” Don’t believe me? Take three hours of the rest of your lifetime and just read and meditate on the words He said and how He said them and you will find my style quite refreshing and welcomed as a method of love rather than a harsh insensitive, unloving, dolt I have often been accused of being.

REPENT OR BURN IN HELL FOREVER!

(Did you get my drift?)