Receiving Jesus Christ is the beginning of a new life with Him. But what happens after we receive Him?
This is where our walk with Jesus really begins. Jesus didn’t call us simply to believe in Him and then go right back to living life the way we always have. He called us to follow Him. In Matthew 16:24 (NLT), Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
Now, let’s slow down and think about what Jesus was saying.
When we decide to follow Jesus, we are making a decision to no longer make ourselves the center of our lives. We have to be willing to give up our own way when our way doesn’t agree with God’s way. That’s not always easy.
There will be times when what we want is different from what God wants. There will be times when our feelings tell us one thing, our desires tell us another, and God’s Word tells us something completely different. Following Jesus means learning to say, “Lord, I want Your way more than I want my way.”
That doesn’t mean we become perfect overnight. It doesn’t mean we never question, struggle, get frustrated, or make mistakes. We are learning. We are growing. We are being changed.
But here’s the beautiful thing: our direction begins to change.
Instead of asking only, “What do I want?” we begin asking, “What does God want?” Instead of automatically doing what feels right to us, we begin learning to seek God’s wisdom. Instead of allowing our feelings, desires, past experiences, or the culture around us to determine how we live, we begin allowing God’s Word to shape our choices.
That’s what it means to follow Jesus.
Jesus becomes more than someone we believe in. He becomes the One we are learning to build our lives around—the One we trust, obey, and follow in every part of our lives.
And here’s something important: following Jesus is a journey.
We don’t wake up one morning and suddenly have everything figured out. We learn to follow Him one step at a time. Sometimes we take a step forward. Sometimes we stumble. Sometimes we realize we’ve been trying to lead instead of follow, and we have to turn ourselves back toward Him. But we keep following.
Because following Jesus isn’t about becoming perfect before we can belong to Him. It’s about belonging to Him and allowing Him to teach us how to live.
Following Jesus Means Learning His Way
Before we came to Christ, we were accustomed to making our own decisions about how we wanted to live. We had our own ideas about what was right, what was wrong, what would make us happy, and what we wanted for our lives. Following Jesus means we begin allowing His Word to teach us a different way. There will be times when what Jesus teaches agrees with what we already think, and there will be times when it doesn’t. That’s where following Him becomes real.
Following Him means we don’t change His Word to agree with us. We allow His Word to change us.
Jesus said in John 14:15 (NLT), “If you love me, obey my commandments.”
Obedience isn’t how we earn Jesus’ love, and it isn’t how we earn salvation. Jesus doesn’t love us because we obey Him. We obey Him because we belong to Him and love Him.
As we follow Jesus, we begin learning to trust that His way is better than ours—even when we don’t understand it, and even when His way isn’t the way we would have chosen.
Sometimes obedience will be easy. There will be things God asks us to do that make perfect sense to us. But other times, obedience will stretch us.
It may mean letting go of something we really want.
It may mean forgiving someone we would rather stay angry with.
It may mean changing a behavior we’ve become comfortable with.
It may mean walking away from something we know isn’t good for us.
It may mean saying no to ourselves when everything in us wants to say yes.
And sometimes, it may simply mean trusting God when we don’t understand what He is doing.
That’s part of following Jesus. We don’t obey only when His instructions make sense to us or when they fit what we already want to do. We are learning to trust the One who knows more than we do.
Obedience is one of the ways our trust in Jesus becomes visible in the way we live.
Following Jesus Means Staying Close to Him
We cannot follow Jesus well while rarely spending time with Him. Jesus used a simple picture to help His disciples understand this. In John 15:5 (NLT), He said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” A branch cannot produce anything if it is disconnected from the vine. In the same way, we need Jesus every day.
We stay close to Him by spending time in God’s Word, praying, listening for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, worshiping God, and learning to recognize His voice through Scripture. These things aren’t religious chores we check off a list so God will be pleased with us. They help us know Him better. As we spend time with Jesus, we begin to understand His heart, recognize what pleases Him, and notice areas of our lives that need to change.
Following Jesus Means Allowing Him to Change Us
Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean everything about us changes overnight. We bring years of habits, attitudes, fears, wounds, wrong thinking, selfishness, and ways of responding to life with us.
Some things God may change quickly. Other things He will work on in us over time.
Philippians 2:13 (NLT) says, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”
I love that this verse reminds us that God is working in us. We don’t have to change ourselves by our own strength. As we follow Jesus, He works in us, showing us what needs to change and giving us the desire and the strength to do what pleases Him.
That’s why we shouldn’t become discouraged when our Heavenly Father begins showing us things about ourselves that need to change.
Sometimes we may think, “Lord, I thought I was further along than this.”
But seeing those things doesn’t necessarily mean we’re failing at following Jesus. Sometimes it means we’re finally close enough to Him to recognize what doesn’t look like Him.
That’s growth.
When God shows us something that needs to change, we don’t need to hide it, make excuses for it, or beat ourselves up over it. We bring it to God. We ask Him to help us. We obey what He shows us, and we keep growing.
There may be things God has already changed in you that you don’t struggle with anymore. And there may be other things He is still working on.
That’s okay. Keep following.
Following Jesus is not about pretending we have everything together. It is about allowing Him to keep working in us, one area at a time, until our lives begin to look more and more like the One we are following.
Following Jesus Is a Daily Decision
There will be days when following Jesus feels wonderful and days when it costs us something. There will be prayers that are answered the way we hoped and others that aren’t. There will be seasons when we understand what God is doing and seasons when we don’t. Following Jesus means we continue trusting Him through all of it—not because life always turns out the way we want, but because we have learned that He is worthy of our trust.
Jesus didn’t promise that following Him would always be easy. He promised something much better: He would be with us. We don’t have to figure out this new life by ourselves. The Holy Spirit helps us, God’s Word teaches us, and Jesus continues leading us as we learn to walk with Him.
Receiving Jesus is where the relationship begins. Following Him is how we learn to live that relationship every day. We will stumble. We will still need forgiveness. We will have much to learn. But we keep coming back to Him, keep listening, keep obeying, and keep allowing Him to change us. That is what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
Continue Learning About Jesus Christ
What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!
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