Fan or Follower?

Following to Leader



He has risen!  Do we say it as a cliché for our visit to church on Sunday or do we really mean it.  Do we really stop to think about the impact of this single action on the entire human race?  For all the billions and billions of people ever born into this world since the beginning of time and yet to be born, the fact that one man took every hurt, every pain, every failure, every mistake, and every darkness that has ever traveled through every life in this world is the greatest of feats no one can truly grasp.  I will never be able to totally grip the whole of the picture of this truth no matter how hard I try to wrap my fragile brain around it, I can still not see past the present moment where I stand.  At that realization, all I know to do is be thankful with as much of myself as I know how to give. 

The pastor spoke of not being a fan but being a follower of Christ.  A fan, a person who cheers and rejoices of winning, curses and pouts of loosing and stands aside while someone else slaves and works to achieve a goal while they themselves never move from their spectator seat.  The fan does not sweat on the field for hours on end trying to condition for that moment of truth.  The fan does not study and work day after day to achieve a purpose set before them.  The fan does not adjust and define their entire life behind a given reason and sacrifice to reach its end.  A follower though, they follow their leader.  They listen to the teaching; mimic the actions of the one they follow.  If their leader falls they are there on the ground with him trying to defend his position, pick him up and stand in his place.  If need be, become the leader if he can lead no longer.  They give up and let go of things just to continue on the path laid out by the one they follow.  Being a follower is painful and difficult.  There is no fame or glory on this road.  This is but great danger and turmoil that continues to pursue.  Being a follower is humbling and refining.  It grows and stretches you; you become the image of the one you follow. 

Am I a fan or a follower?  Do I cheer and rejoice over wins, wear the team colors, spouting about another’s great deeds?  Do I critique the calls of the coach while sitting in my seat behind the spectator line?  Or am a follower, am I willing to sacrifice my identity to become the identity of Christ?  Am I willing to give up everything to be the person he is seeking for me to be?  I look back on my life and see that God has already been teaching me the difficult lesson of being a follower.  He has slowly stripped away so many of the things that I have held onto to protect me from having to truly get my feet in the mud.  The people I have tried to follow, the things I have tried to label myself with, the things that I have tried to use to define myself without having to do the hard part and actually get down in the dirt of life and find out who Christ intended me to be?  Christ never intended me to follow the actions and dreams of man.  Man is not Christ, man fails and falls short but Christ, He is the General in an army that is so much stronger than any force built by man.  He strips away the luxuries of this world and asks us to get down in the trenches not to punish us or harm us but to strengthen us, to turn us into soldiers willing to follow him till the end of the battle.  To crawl in the mud, to climb the barbed fences, until the day we can all say the battle is over and the day of victory is here. 

If I had decided to stay a fan then I probably would have turned in the towel long ago.  Being a fan in this game does not bring the instant gratification that the fan continually seeks but being a follower willing to crawl in the mud of life to follow the leading of Christ brings a greater reward that only He can give. 

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  Matthew 16:24 (NKJV)