Encore - 982 - Are We Standing With Jesus? - Luke 22:28

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. In episode 199 of our podcast (https://followerofone.org/who-is-greatest-luke-22-27/), we talked about Luke 22:27, but today I want to talk about Luke 22:28. And the verse simply says “You are those who have stood by me in my trials.” Jesus is speaking to the disciples and He's actually calling them out a little bit, because they're having an argument about which one of them is greatest in the kingdom.   And this is the last night or so of Jesus's life. So here they are, arguing about which one of them is greatest, and Jesus interrupts them and He reminds them the story about who's greater. That's what episode 199 is about. But this episode, which I think is 522 of our podcast - thank you for being a listener - this is about the next phrase. You are those who have stood by me in my trials.   We get the choice as followers of Jesus to go with Jesus and stand by Him in His trials, to follow Him daily, or we can choose not to follow Him. I can choose to not follow Him in the next few minutes. Choose to watch something that takes me away from Him or do something that separates me from Him.   I can concentrate on myself. There are so many millions of ways that we can leave Jesus. It's this constant struggle. And I think one of the goals of at least my Christian life has been learning to trust Jesus to keep me drawn to Him, and to keep me connected to Him. And today what I wanted to do is challenge us a little bit.   I wanted to ask the question: How are you? No matter where you are, do you know that if you made a long series of choices to not follow Jesus, the next choice, you can choose to follow Him. You can choose to do what He says again. I don't... I can't get into the “Once saved, always saved” or any of those kinds of arguments.   I just know I want to do the next right thing. I want to choose in my next choice to follow Jesus and obey Him. That's why our prayer that we like to talk about at Follower of One, “Here I am, send me” is a profound, powerful prayer, especially when followed with the question “Okay Jesus, what do you want me to do today? What would you have me do next?”   When we focus on following Jesus in our circumstances, one choice at a time, we get another chance to remain with Him in His trials, just like He says here. We are those who have stood by Him in His trials. “You are those who have stood by me in my trials” Luke 22:28, from the New American Standard.   Let's choose today to stand by Jesus. The difficulties and the temptations and the distractions to separate ourselves from Him, to not stand by Him and to not follow Him, those stay. They remain. We will always be challenged by these temptations to separate ourselves from following Jesus. We can’t avoid the difficulty, but we can gain the joy and peace and love of following Jesus by simply choosing.   Here I am. Would you please put me to work? How can you use me in the lives of the people that I will interact with next? Show me what you would have me do today, Jesus, and I will do it.   Try that prayer today and watch Jesus start to transform your life. The more often I believe we can remind ourselves that we're on the clock for Jesus Christ, the more joy filled we will be, the more different we will live, and the more others will ask about why it is that we're doing the things that we do. That's also why we have to practice knowing what we believe in saying what we believe, but start it, begin it all today with here I am. You can begin right now.   Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference in your world and in your workplace. The joy that Jesus gives us when we join Him, can transform our world. Jesus is in the process of doing that right now. Let's join Him and take part.    Thanks for listening to this podcast or this audio, wherever you're getting it. Thank you for listening to it. Please share it with someone else. Invite them to join you and me over at followerofone.org. Thanks very much.