Matthew 4:19Â Â And He *said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 10:37Â Â “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
Matthew 10:38Â Â “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
John 14:6Â Â Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
NASB Translation
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) Once said in one of his many books “It is not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that bother me, it’s the things I do understand that bother meâ€. As I think back on my walk with Jesus, in the beginning it would have been nice If someone would have helped me understand many of the great truths of the Bible are simple and easy to understand, although hard to apply. Focusing on the words of Jesus like those above and applying them could have helped keep me from being trapped in a more complicated search of scripture. As time proceeded, God, His word, and some of His true followers kept bringing me back to the most important messages, of which there are many. Some of the truth I found hard to follow, I am sure, was because my maturity in Jesus was not developed enough to completely trust and follow Him. What I eventually learned as I experienced my spiritual walk with Him, was none of the things I was afraid of, like Loving Him more than my family members, did not lead to less love for them but more love, did not lead to less compassion but more, not less service but more. The more I love Him the more those around me benefit. Jesus said He was the way the truth and the life. If I believe this, and I do then no other way makes any sense to me. If I want a walk worthy of Jesus, I must do what He tells me to in His word. It is scary to think of the consequences of not being worthy as seen in the Bible.
No way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.