by Tad Lindley
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps… (I Peter 2:21 KJV)
For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. (I Peter 2:21 NLT)
Follow your own steps
Look at your feet for a moment. You are probably sitting down as you read this. Imagine that we could start at your feet and follow your footprints backwards in time. We would see where you were before you sat down to read. Perhaps your footprints would lead us out the door of the house and along the boardwalk to the store. We would see which aisles you walked up and down, and your trail would eventually go to the door where you came in. If we could go back across the footprints of your life, we would eventually come to a time many years ago where you took your first steps, and further back that you could only crawl. What would the trail of your life tell us about you? Have you left a solid packed trail to the house of God? Or instead does it go to the bar or the bingo hall? Does it go across the tundra and up and down the rivers? Or does it go to the freezer section at the grocery store? The trail of your life shows how you have lived.
God watches our feet
In Song of Songs 1:8 we are instructed to follow the footsteps of the flock. In Proverbs 4:26 Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. (NLT) In Proverbs 6:18 we learn that God absolutely hates feet that be swift in running to mischief. Job was aware of this and he built his reputation on living a righteous life. He spoke these immortal words, My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. (Job 23:11 NKJV)
Where are your feet pointed?
Many years ago I was invited to preach at a Moravian Church in the village. I went to the church an hour before service so that I could pray in a quiet place. The building was open. A lady was setting up chairs in the back. I recognized her as the mother of my late friend who had killed himself. She was widowed and remarried. I asked how her husband, also a friend of mine, was doing. “I don’t know, I haven’t heard from him in five months,” she said. Many of us would have turned aside from God under such bleak circumstances, and yet here she was, instead of drowning her sorrows in the sins of the world, she had her feet pointed to the house of God. Where are your feet pointed right now?
The footsteps of Jesus
If we could travel back in time, we could intersect the physical footprints of Jesus at the whipping post in Matthew 27:26. The blood trail would lead to a large hall where they put the crown of thorns on him and mocked him, and then the trail would go out of the hall, through the gate in the wall of the city and up the hill. At the top of the hill, the footprints disappear from the ground and show up on the suppedaneum of a wooden post. These prints are very bloody and have a hole in the middle from a large spike. The footprint trail stops at the cross, but we are able to pick it up three days later in the cemetery where his footprints come out of the grave where they laid his dead body.
How do we follow his footsteps to the cross?
Remember when Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it…” (Matthew 16:24-25) He is clearly talking about repenting of living life our way. We have to deny ourselves and take up our cross. Just as he took our sin to the cross and was crucified, we are to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).
To the grave?
We follow his footsteps to the grave when we are baptized with him: Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. (Romans 6:3-4 NLT) When we are put under water in Jesus’ name, we are being buried with him.
To the resurrection?
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. (Romans 8:11 NLT) When we receive the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit we are following in the footsteps of his resurrection. And we will walk a new path: Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4 NKJV)
Where will you go from here?
If you have not been following in the footsteps of Jesus, now is the time. Repent, be baptized in Jesus name (if nobody will baptize you where you live, please contact me), and the Lord will fill you with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38-39). Follow in his footsteps!
Reverend Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
