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The Other Jesus, Part 2, Week 2, Day 2

by David Joynt on July 09, 2018

The Other Jesus, Part 2, Week 2, Day 2

LUKE 9:57

As they were going down the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

Here someone volunteers to join Jesus’ company. Matthew adds that this man was a scribe (see Matthew 8:19). If so, then it would have taken an extra measure of courage to align himself with a teacher who was unpopular with Israel’s legal community of Torah experts. Notice the unconditional quality of the pledge, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

Commitment is a serious matter, and it deserves careful consideration because Christian discipleship offers great rewards but requires great sacrifices.

PRAYER

Gracious God, sometimes I carry your name in a casual and haphazard way. My commitment wavers and flickers and fluctuates. Forgive me—strengthen my resolve to live and serve with genuine enthusiasm and real fervor. I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Tags: command, commitment

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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