After CampSample

If you’ve started following Jesus, here are three important things to know. FIRST Following Jesus isn’t a solo-just-me kind of life. You’re now part of God’s family, adopted as his beloved son or daughter. It‘s important to stay connected to other people who follow Jesus because you’ll need their love, guidance, encouragement, and friendship. SECOND Following Jesus isn’t a one-time-only kind of event. You’ll continue to learn and grow your entire life. This might look different for different people, but everyone for sure needs these four things: · Time with an older Jesus-follower (maybe your leader, or parent, or pastor, or other mentor) who can walk alongside you. Sometimes people call this “being discipled.” · Time in the Bible, getting to know God’s story better and better so you know how your own story intersects and joins up with his. · Time in prayer, which is just talking to God and listening to him. No need for fancy words or sophisticated phrases. Just be yourself. · Time in worship, getting together with other people to sing, pray, and learn more about God. This can happen in church or in a small group.. THIRD Following Jesus isn’t a difficult concept. It simply means getting to know him better and becoming more like him in the ways you think, speak, and act. Following Jesus is mostly about loving God and loving others. Pretty basic and straightforward, right? But it can be really hard to do sometimes. There are so many other ways we could spend our time each day besides being with Jesus. And there are so many others things we could do besides truly loving God and other people. Focusing your life towards Jesus will be wonderful and challenging, amazing and costly, joyful and difficult. All those things, and more. Good news, though – you don’t do the following and changing on your own. Your part is to stay closely connected to Jesus. His part is to work in your heart and mind, bringing about good change, over time, from the inside out. And one more really important thing: God doesn’t change you into a duplicate of anyone else or a stranger that you won’t recognize. Instead, he changes you into who he created you to be, with all of your own unique personality traits and skills and abilities and interests and wonderful you-ness. Question: Besides your leader, are there other people you can talk to about following Jesus? (Go ahead and read Day 3 now for more thoughts on following Jesus.)