Sincerely Following Jesus

Richard Hollerman

You may think that this title is very strange. What could it possibly mean? Why would we ask this pointed statement?

We make this statement since we are convinced that many just don’t want to follow Jesus fully and completely. They may want to carry the “Christian” name in some way but just don’t want to follow, love, and serve the Lord Jesus as He deserves to be in our life.

“Sincere” means “not feigned or affected; genuine” and “having no hypocrisy or pretense; true.” And “sincerity” means “the quality or condition of being sincere; genuineness, honesty, and freedom from duplicity.” We definitely want to seek sincerity as followers of Christ Jesus. This is a “fruit” of the Spirit at work in our life.

One time, as I recall listening to sermons, it was said that the term came from another that means “without wax.” The story went this way when a     sculptor made a carving, he would advertize and sell his work with the words, “without wax.” Apparently, when he found a defect in his work, he would often use wax as a filler to make the potential customer think that it was without defect. As it turned out, we think that this was more of an apocryphal story but it did make sense to make a point. We are to present ourselves as a person who is sincere or one filled with honesty, genuineness, and we are to avoid hypocrisy.

Alas, we know that there are many who make the claim of being a follower of Christ but simply don’t live up to it. They profess to be a Christian, a true and submissive Christian, but their profession simply doesn’t compare favorably with our practice. We find too many inconsistencies, too many issues in our life, to really claim to be a follower of Christ Jesus, in sincerity and truth.

We find that some 2.2 billion people in the world claim to be “Christians” but some 1.2 billion of these can be crossed out immediately. Several hundred millions may also be crossed out for they are “Christians” in name only but in a false cult (called “churchianity”). We’ve just heard that some 500 million also claim to be Christians but they hold to false doctrine. If you happen to believe in a conservative brand of Christianity called “Evangelicalism,” this would mean that additional ones must be crossed out. Many or even most would be “Reformed!”

If we were to include various false doctrines by those who claim to be Christians, we must also negate many, many others (such as those who are nominal rather than fervent). There may be tens of millions of others who hold to heretical doctrines but still claim to be Christians. If we additionally reject all of those who are infant baptizers, surely this would take out many of the remaining ones. It has been reported that there are som3 30,000 groups or churches that claim to be following Christ! As to what is left, we don’t know. But we do know that the number is very, very small compared to the original number of those who claim to be Christians!

This reasoning shows that most of those who claim to be followers of Jesus really don’t follow Him. This is why we wrote a book entitled “The Narrow Way” and another with a similar title. In those books, we showed that most of those who profess to be Christians really are not genuine. We encourage you to look up one or more of these articles on our website: www.Truediscipleship.com.

When it comes to the title of this present article, “Sincerely Following Jesus,” we know that most people—even those who profess to be Christians—really fail to either come to Christ initially or fail to live for Him after they have come to Him. We can see why Jesus said what He did in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. We read this:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:13-14).

This passage should consume several pages of print but much of it is self-explanatory. Jesus encourages us to enter through the narrow gate that leads to the narrow way that leads to life. On the other hand, we are not to enter through the broad gate that leads to the broad way for it leads to destruction.

Which way will it be for you? The broad one or the narrow one? The difference is between destruction and life. Let us walk the narrow way that leads to eternal life!