About a year ago these words began playing through my head like a song “Let’s Move Forward in Jesus,” “Let’s Move Forward in Jesus tonight!” These words have yet to leave me; I truly desire for the church today to move forward in Jesus and nothing else. Regardless of what each of us desires church to look like, if we cannot move forward in Jesus then we are further off then we had thought. “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). Paul did not desire to speak with eloquent words or great speeches, but rather he desired to display the power of God which is truth, His word is truth.

I haven’t heard it preached in a long time now, but it is of importance that it is remembered. Jesus said several times to his disciples and others, “Follow Me.” These two words should be of big importance in our walk. We are to follow HIM, not anything else. Yes, we have men in place to help guide us, but we ultimately follow HIM, no excuses. Many church goers in the First Century began having this problem and Paul addressed it right away:

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:10-17).

Paul was addressing the fact that people were choosing to follow the teachings and signs of others rather than Christ. But Christ is the one who died for us, you see, we must follow Him and no one else. We are not to hate these men that others follow, because these are men who are doing the work of Christ, but many today want to follow man because man is what they can see. Paul addressed this again later on in his same letter:

“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:1-9).

What if christians today set aside all agendas, all personal ambitions, all thought, and just desired to move forward in Jesus, move forward WITH Jesus? This is hard, 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ”I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Let us no longer move in a direction contrary to God’s Word and His Spirit, let us move forward as the body, let us move forward in Jesus!

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

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