immediately
And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Matthew 4:19-22
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This passage always strikes me as odd and surprising.
Here you have 4 fisherman, two are with their father, going about their everyday business when Jesus walks up to them and calls them to follow him.
The inner skeptic in me would love to see this played out in realtime when I get to heaven, because I'm sure that there is more to this story than what scripture tells us.
Questions linger like, "what compelled them to follow Jesus?" "Why did they drop everything?" "How could James and John just leave their father like that?" "What else did Jesus say? Did he even need to say anything else to compel them?" "Did the 4 guys have anything to say in response?"
The phrase, "immediately" though always hits me hardest. If the bible simply said that these men followed Jesus, I would still be surprised, but the fact that the bible mentions that they immediately dropped everything that they were doing to follow Jesus convicts me.
How often do I hold onto my current preoccupations and chores before I follow Jesus? There have been many a moment where I have felt the "Holy Spirit tugging" at my heart at certain things and events and yet I didn't follow my "gut" and I did otherwise. Not to get all charismatic, but I definitely feel like there are moments like that where if Jesus were standing in front of me and telling me to "follow Him", that I would simply say like the man in Matthew 8, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."
James and John not only dropped their nets and followed Jesus, but they even left their father standing on the boat.
I wonder what their father must've said to them as they walked following Jesus. Or perhaps, the very presence, power, authority, and love of Jesus's words not only compelled his sons to drop everything and follow him, but gave him a sense of knowing that this Jesus was someone completely unlike anyone else he has ever met.
And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Matthew 4:19-22
---
This passage always strikes me as odd and surprising.
Here you have 4 fisherman, two are with their father, going about their everyday business when Jesus walks up to them and calls them to follow him.
The inner skeptic in me would love to see this played out in realtime when I get to heaven, because I'm sure that there is more to this story than what scripture tells us.
Questions linger like, "what compelled them to follow Jesus?" "Why did they drop everything?" "How could James and John just leave their father like that?" "What else did Jesus say? Did he even need to say anything else to compel them?" "Did the 4 guys have anything to say in response?"
The phrase, "immediately" though always hits me hardest. If the bible simply said that these men followed Jesus, I would still be surprised, but the fact that the bible mentions that they immediately dropped everything that they were doing to follow Jesus convicts me.
How often do I hold onto my current preoccupations and chores before I follow Jesus? There have been many a moment where I have felt the "Holy Spirit tugging" at my heart at certain things and events and yet I didn't follow my "gut" and I did otherwise. Not to get all charismatic, but I definitely feel like there are moments like that where if Jesus were standing in front of me and telling me to "follow Him", that I would simply say like the man in Matthew 8, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."
James and John not only dropped their nets and followed Jesus, but they even left their father standing on the boat.
I wonder what their father must've said to them as they walked following Jesus. Or perhaps, the very presence, power, authority, and love of Jesus's words not only compelled his sons to drop everything and follow him, but gave him a sense of knowing that this Jesus was someone completely unlike anyone else he has ever met.
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