How to Follow Christ – Introduction

Greetings Dear Reader,

Before I launch this discussion I wish to put forth a very clear disclaimer.  I am just getting the hang of this after almost forty years of trying.  I am not in any shade of the term perfect.  Most times I am tolerable.  It is a daily struggle to do what it right.  It is a conscious choice to be more that someone who only lives for what he wants.

As I have said many times before the key to following anything is in what you believe.  I accept it as an axiom that one must have faith because nothing can be absolutely proven.  Some things are more reasonable than others.  What I propose here is to be open as to the struggles involved and the methods that work for me in overcoming those struggles. 

There is no secret formula.  There is a to do list but it is simple and short.  It is also hard and demanding.  There is an extreme paradox.  Many of the things involved in following Christ seem foolish.  Truly following Christ demands that we give up everything.

So the question comes, “What does one do to do that?”  What works?  I think that the first thing I had to do, and it took a long time, was realize how few answers I have.  All of the things that I struggle with, all the sin that hinders my following Christ are part of who I am.

When I think that I have the answers I am in error.  The entire concept of following is that I do not know the path but rather I need someone to follow.   So this is where I begin.  I wake up every morning realizing that today I need to follow more closely than I did yesterday.  Every morning, when my feet hit the floor I remind myself that I am unable to follow Christ without first facing my need for him. 

I begin my day of following by asking for guidance.  I ask that I do nothing that is not following.  I ask for strength, grace, and mercy.  Nothing about following Christ works if I do not embrace the depth of my need to do so.  I realize this seems brief and simplistic but it is also key.  If I seize the moment of awakening to renew my determination to follow Christ then I am much more likely to do so in the moments that follow.

The journey is a series of moments.  If I live to be seventy-two I will have 2,272,147,200 of those moments.  If I wish a life that is lived in following Christ I must give as many of those moments as possible to that following.  Some will be more vital moments than others.  The more I make a habit of following Christ in every moment the more likely I will be to follow him in the vital ones.  This is where it begins.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."