TRUTH TUESDAY: What Does It Mean to Say Yes to Jesus?

What Does It Mean to Say Yes to Jesus?There are a lot of ways you might hear people talk about saying yes to Jesus. You might hear phrases like “committing your life to Jesus,” “becoming a Christian,” “getting saved,” or “choosing to follow Jesus.”In my words, I say, “Follow Jesus.” Following Jesus in it’s most basic and simplest form is becoming like Him.Sometimes we can make following Jesus too difficult. We put a lot of rules and stipulations on following Jesus.When I was younger, I used to think my anger made it so I didn’t follow Jesus. If I got angry, I wasn’t following Jesus. So I told myself it wasn’t my anger that made me not follow Jesus. It was my reactions to my anger that made me not follow what Jesus said. That can be true! I believe we all have emotions, and emotions are not bad, it can often be more of our reactions to our emotions that control us. So I worked on anger management and trying not to react in such a way that was unacceptable. But I still was having problems. I wasn’t addressing the source. I wasn’t addressing the biggest issue. I wasn’t addressing my heart.The Bible is clear that our hearts are important. God values our hearts over physical appearance. He tells us to guard our hearts. Jesus told us our hearts are where our treasure is. Our hearts have a lot of value and it’s things like peace, hope, and love that keep our hearts ground. So, when I started focusing my heart, meaning my focus, desires, and discipline on Jesus, that’s when my anger didn’t control me as much. I made sure I focused on what is important and decided what is important to Jesus is important to me.So how do we do that? We need to go to the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It tells us that in the beginning, God made the world, humanity included. He gave us the job of enjoying and caring for what He made. But humanity made choices that hurt us, others, and the world. These choices—what the Bible calls sin—separated us from our perfect God and limited our ability to do the job He had given us.Centuries later, God’s Son entered the world as a baby named Jesus. Jesus lived around 33 years on Earth and spent that time showing us the best way to live—by loving God and loving others. Then He closed the separation between us and God, His Father, by dying on a cross and rising from the dead.Why would Jesus, fully God and fully man, have made this kind of sacrifice for us? Before His death, Jesus sat down with a person named Nicodemus late one night. Nicodemus had lots of questions about what it meant to follow Jesus. As part of His response to Nicodemus’ questions, Jesus shared some of His most famous words:“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”John 3:16-17 NLTGod’s love for us is so great that Jesus was willing to die for our sins so we could be a part of His family forever. That’s the kind of love that would make anyone want to say yes to His love, forgiveness, and new way of life.