“BECAUSE CHRIST ALSO suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). In His steps is not quite the same as in Him, but if we are in Him we must follow in His steps. Not that in His steps is primary in the Christian gospel. He is not primarily our example. The attempt to follow Him primarily as example ends in tenseness, strain, and disillusionment. We must follow Him primarily as Savior and Lord, then as example. Following Him as Savior and Lord means self-surrender and acceptance; following Him as example means you give Him your deeds and works, but not necessarily yourself.
Once surrendered to Him, you follow in His steps; not merely the footsteps He left in Palestine two thousand years ago—they are important, for the universal is in those local steps—but also the steps of this Man in the present. He is alive and walks the roads of today, and he who is in Him must be with Him as He walks up the new Calvaries of modern life, where He is being crucified on a cross of gold, a cross of nationalism, a cross of war, a cross of greed, a cross of racialism, a cross of hate.
The slogan “Don’t wrestle, nestle” is good to show that we are to cease our struggling and nestle in His love, but it can become a quietism, an escape. Jesus bids us follow Him in new battles, on new fronts, in new situations. “You preach a very troublesome gospel,” said a Reformed minister of South Africa to me. “You preach a Kingdom of God on earth, and that upsets everything. I preach a Kingdom in heaven, and that doesn’t upset anything now.” No, but it leaves Christ alone crucified on a cross of racialism, and it leaves a situation which is growingly like a hell on earth—a heavenly kingdom and an earthly hell! We must follow in His steps now.
O Christ, our Redeemer, if we are to follow Thee we must hasten our steps, for Thou art out ahead of us, fighting the battle with weapons of love on new fronts. Help us to be sensitive to where the real issues are. In Thy name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If I am in Him I must be in His steps on every issue with His attitudes.
