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Jimmy Engle said:Without using any scripture and just giving you my personal opinion, I would say that the best way to follow after Christ is to allow yourself to be humbled before Him. Come to Christ as a child would come to their parents for food with complete trust that it will be provided. God only gets glory out of people that depend on Christ so he can reveal his love, grace and mercy towards the sinner. The best way of doing that is to just humble yourself daily.
To be humble, you must die to yourself. You must die to any self effort meaning, don't try to be self righteous. Realize that it's only through Christ that you can be delivered and freed from any sin/s that you once were involved in prior to accepting Christ as Lord and savior.
Basically, the best way anyone can follow after Christ is to come to Christ completely broken of self effort or pride. Christ will provide everything we need through our walk with Him. He will literally change us slowly through the course of our lives into his image. Will we be perfect? No, but we will grow in faith and love and the laws will be written on our hearts. All these things come from Christ and not of ourselves. Following Christ isn't some self effort...it's Christ laying desires and passions on our hearts that causes us to want to spread the gospel and to want get involved in missionairy activities and most importantly reflect Him in every thought and deed.
However, I will add just one line of scripture because it goes with what I am trying to say here.
Matt 5:3 - Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hope this has helped answer your question. I was vague in answering it but if you want I can go into detail with scripture to show you what the bible says about following after Christ.
If you look at guys like Paul in the NT, you get a really good idea of what it means to follow after Christ. To him dying was gain and he was only concerned with Christ getting glory out of his life. ;D
Benoni said:I have my forty-one niece living with me at the present who is a recovering drug addict and has pretty much ruined here life but has an awesome heart for Jesus and really loves the Lord and is doing awesome. She is a babe spiritually speaking but my sister who is a spirit filled church believer who also really loves the lord has emotionally and spiritually attacked my niece as well as her brother their whole lives. I did not know how bad it was until a visit this last summer to there home where this got so out of control in my presence.
I immediately told my niece she was coming home with me and my wife and she has lived with us since this summer and has been nothing but a blessing
Back to my sister. I had to make some visits to my sister’s house to get details worked out to get my niece coming to my home. But the anger and attacked from my sister continued and Christian husband are so un-Christ like where it really matters.
On the surface my sister is a saint, and appears to be the perfect believer but deep down it is her carnal nature ruling not the peace of Jesus. Reminds me of the Jews during Jesus day who prayed in the streets to become notice by others for there loud public prayers. My sister cannot turn the other cheek, for this reason she has limited her spiritual growth and is not in the will of God for her anger is her god.
kestrel said:I'm seeing different perspectives and approaches, from the -for the lack of a better word- philosophical, to direct experience. For me, I'm going to add one verse.
James 1:27
Jesus began his ministry by demanding to be baptised then he prayed for the anointing, the Holy Spirit, God gave independant witness to this with a voice being heard declaring him to be the son of God.kestrel said:Just an open question, without second thoughts or issues
True, he didn't minister to anyone else until after he returned from his time of seeking his Father in the wilderness.Miss Hepburn said:I really thought He started His ministry when He emerged from the wilderness after 40 days.
But, I'm new at this.
Later Peter "commands" people to be baptised (Acts 2:38, 10:48), there are some people in my town who teach "it's a good idea".Miss Hepburn said:At first I had a reaction to the word demanded -but, I guess John was a hard one to convince at first. - so I guess Jesus really did demand to be baptised.
kestrel said:Just an open question, without second thoughts or issues