Sign The Blank Page

We’re getting into the very heart of Jesus in the Gospel According to Luke. It’s all about what it means to follow Christ.

I remember hearing a speaker one time (actually over 25 years ago now) say that what we typically tend to do is something like this -  We imagine a list of things that we are willing to do for Christ; (what I am prepared to do that I think will be enough to impress Him!) and then we kind of present it to Him as the expression of our devotion. The speaker (I can’t remember his name) encouraged us to picture Jesus’ response to our great gesture in a scenario that goes something like this …. we present Jesus with our list, signed at the bottom by our own hand just to make it totally official and binding, accompanied by all kinds of self congratulatory emotions… And what does Jesus do? He hands us back a blank piece of paper and says, “Just sign the bottom, then I will fill in all the details.”

In other words, when Jesus calls us to turn our backs on the ways of the world, to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Him, He is asking us to sign a blank piece of paper. It’s true. How often do we hold back on committing ourselves fully to Christ for fear of what He might ask us to do? The truth is that we don’t know what He might ask us to do. But that’s the whole point. He wants us to be willing to do whatever, wherever, whenever.

This means that we must trust Him implicitly of course. To really follow Christ, we must let go of everything and everyone, even our own lives. It’s a lot like signing a blank page.