Are You Sure?

John 6 is one of my favorite passages about what it means to be a follower of Christ. Jesus feeds the 5,000, and is then talking to the crowds that say they want to follow Him. He lays a hard line. He says that He is the bread of life, not the "dead" manna of Moses that came from heaven for their fathers. He professes to be the Son of God, and if they eat His flesh and drink His blood, believing in Him and Him from Whom He was sent, they will have everlasting life. He asks if this is offensive to them, knowing full well that it is. He knows there are many who don't believe. And sure enough, many who followed Him turned away and followed no more. But then the 12 were left, and Jesus asks them, "Hey, are you sure you don't want to leave too?" (Kate Finman paraphrase translation). Simon Peter says they have nowhere else to go, and that they have come to believe He is Christ the Messiah. So He goes from thousands to twelve in about a timeframe of an hour or less.

I read a book by a pastor who said that when people come to him saying they want to follow Jesus, he straight up tells him he's going to do everything to convince them not to. He says that if you make the commitment to follow Christ, He's going to ask for your finances, your relationships, your job, your vacations, your everything. Jesus has bid you to come and die. Is that ok with you? This pastor does what Jesus did. He preaches a hard line, and lets people make their choice. Some people need more time, and some people likely never make that choice. Jesus didn't want fans, throngs of people willing to follow Him until it got too hard or boring or there was something better to do. He was looking for disciples - those willing to drop everything and heed His words, to spread His message throughout nations. Twelve people willing to do that would be better than twelve thousand who would do nothing but undermine what it meant to follow Him.

If we water down the gospel to make it more appealing to our friends, we minimize the truth that is embodied in Christ Jesus. We cannot say that all is easy, but we can say that our help is in the Lord. He promises that if we abide in Him, He will be our rest and our dwelling place forever.



From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” John 6:66-69

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Luke 9:23

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28