Kathryn Scott has a lovely rendition of “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” on her CD Live Worship at focusfest. It is a wonderful hymn of commitment to one’s Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ that I hope will be sung for generations to come.
One of the verses, however, sounded “off” to me, though, as I listened to it other day. It had nothing to do with the vocalist, but rather the lyrics, particularly in the fourth verse:
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
no turning back, no turning back.
I heard myself substituting in these words:
When none go with me, I’ll have my own cult…
Please understand that I mean no disrespect towards the singer, hymn writer nor people who love this hymn. I’d just like to share how I began wondering where the line is between an individual sticking up for his or her convictions and an individual errantly wandering from orthodoxy and the church. One can take these words out of context and essentially say, My faith is about me and Jesus, and it’s none of your business.
My prayer is that before we view with any amount of self-righteousness how none are going with us on our true journey of faith, we’ll pause long enough to ask whether our family, our friends, our church community might know something we don’t, and that we’ll see following Jesus as an isolated individual as a tragic and rare anomaly, not the biblical norm.
Perhaps I can more safely substitute the words of the verse prior to the first person plural…
The world behind us, the cross before us;
no turning back, no turning back.
Note:
You may see some connections between my thoughts today and what I wrote on Wednesday.
4th Point 