Following Him

Rev. Chr. Van der Poel, Yerseke, the Netherlands

We have again been privileged to enter a new year. What lies behind us is history; what lies before us is hidden. Whether the year will bring us prosperity or adversity, or if it will become the year of our death, is unknown to us. One thing is certain, that he who may follow after Him, as is mentioned in our text, is blessed. Christ said this to His disciples after He had spoken to them about His death and resurrection. “If any man will come after Me”—who of us is willing or able to do that? No one is because through sin we have become unable and unwilling. God would not be unrighteous if He had not made an escape for fallen mankind, but that was not His desire. It was His good pleasure to make unwilling ones willing. We read in Psalm 110:3, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” Through the new birth, a person becomes a student in the school of Christ. Not that he then knows Him. In that school a sinner comes to the knowledge through the uncovering light of the Holy Spirit that he has sinned against God and is without Him in the world. There a sinner is completely uncovered; he becomes dead to himself, and Christ becomes most excellent. What willingness there then is to follow Him and to deny ones self. That means not to think anything of self and to obey Him in everything. It becomes the desire of their heart, worked in them by Him, to consider all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of His name.

On the other hand, they must learn that they are unable to perform this in and of themselves. They must constantly be won over for this work, for they remain unwilling in themselves. Paul says in Romans 7:19, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” He had a law in his members which was warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. May the Lord teach us, for the first time and in continuance, to follow Him and to deny ourselves. Although the future is hidden and dark and many will say, “Who will show us any good?” for those who follow Him it is sure that nothing will separate them from the love which is in Christ Jesus. Can God’s people always believe that? Oh no, then there would be no more strife upon this earth. It is for their comfort, only when faith is in exercise. Therefore, it is so necessary that saving grace not only is given but also exercised, for otherwise it is a looking unto self and a maintaining of self. Life and salvation lie in Him, in the following of Him, and being submissive unto Him, yea, in the uniting with His will. As we read in the prayer of the poet in Psalter 236:2, “Help me Thy will to do.”

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