GET UP

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 9:9 (NASB77) ⁹ And as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man, called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He •said to him, ” Follow Me!” And he rose, and followed Him.

I can’t help but think that Matthew had advance knowledge or experience with Jesus. I don’t think a man as educated and firmly rooted in crime and big money would be so frivolous to follow the first man who asked him to. I conclude that Matthew had come under conviction of sin and saw that his only salvation was in the Prophet from Nazareth. Isn’t God good!

There he was, ripping people off with exorbitant taxes and in his darkest conviction of sin when of all things, the Light of God stepped up and said, “Follow me.” He got up immediately knowing that this was his golden moment of freedom from the love of the world that stunk with the filth of the devil that temporarily ruled it. What a privilege to be personally addressed by God incarnate, “Follow me.” Wow!

There was a moment in your life you said, “Yes Jesus, I will follow you.” It was a special time you heard Him attentively because the Holy Spirit had your spiritual ears pointed in His direction. You responded on the spot to His convincing call and you were very earnest to learn all you could about Him.

We are so undeserving of His grace and blessings, yet He loved us so much He took our hell that we might have His heaven. WE are not just ill-deserving, we are hell-deserving. We remove the consequences as best we can and avoid them. We overlook the cause of that which brings us down. Once the worldly cause is replaced with Christ the consequences that were destroying us change to ones that build us up in Him.

Jesus removes the:

• Penalty of sin
• Power of sin
• Presence of sin

Matthew followed Jesus with the same faith we follow Him with now. The faith begins with knowledge and that’s why I believe that Matthew had a foreknowledge of Jesus before he decided to respond so quickly and completely. He believed in Jesus as it was preordained for him to do. Like metal to magnet, he could not refuse his calling any more than you or I could refuse ours. It is all a matter of trust displacing fear.