Follow the Leader

Thinking back as a young girl, I remember playing that game in school called Follow the Leader. There was always one on the front lines and you had to go wherever they went. Sometimes, the places you went was just around the corner and up the hill, but sometimes, those places you were led too were places that may have gotten you in hot water. Even as adults we tend to follow the leaders in our lives. Unfortunately, not all the leaders in our lives are good leaders. We have allowed ourselves to be led by many people and things that steer us off the path of righteousness. Whether the leaders in our lives are other people or other things. Sometimes, our leaders can be ourselves. Our own selfish thoughts, our own deceitful hearts.

As I was in my studies this week, the Lord led me to Matthew 16:24-26 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? At that moment I felt the Lord penetrating my spirit. Instantly the phrase: take up your cross began to fill my thoughts. The phrase: Carry your cross does not mean to carry your own burdens, instead it means to die to one’s self and completely surrender to God’s will. How many times in life do we think we are completely sold out to Christ and then life happens and we are devastated by its circumstances.

The truth is, we become so wrapped up with the things and the people around us that we begin the follow after those things. We begin to get wrapped up in our own lives and the lives of others that we lose sight of who the real leader is in our lives. Even if the leaders in our lives are great leaders, don’t put them at the head of your table. In Luke chapter 9, Christ’s warned that people will begin to reject Him. They would not be able to put to death their own ideas and desires in place of His. Luke 9:22 says: “He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. We don’t always realize that when we put our own needs, wants and desires ahead of Christ that we are indeed sinning and not dying to our fleshly desires. Sometimes, we even put our circumstances, our financial situations, our hurts and pains, our friends and family above all else. We make our lives and our situations bigger than and more important than God’s plan for us. I know that for me, I have personally allowed the noise of my own life to be so loud that I couldn’t hear the voice of God speaking to me. I have pridefully thought that I was more important in situations and lives than I was.

At many points in life we have to remind ourselves that Christ is the Head and our Leader. That we are to put to rest our own wants, needs and desires and follow in His footsteps. When Christ was forced to carry His own cross, He carried it to the very place in which He died. A place where He continued to shed His blood for us until He took His last breath. A cross reference to Matthew 16 is John 19:17 Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Today, I encourage you to follow the leader which is Christ.  I pray that you are prompted by the Holy Spirit to find a quiet place, a place where you can cry out to Him, a place of surrender and allow your flesh to die so that you may live. I encourage you to put everything at His feet and know that He is God and you are His! 

                                                                                           *Aleeza*