I started following Jesus.

I started following Jesus last week.

I would call my life a constant conversion. The reality is that I have never been saved. I can not pin point a moment in my life where I can look back and say,

"This is it, this is the day I have turned my life around."

However, God has given me opportunities to follow him. There have been four or five opportunities where God has brought my life to it's knees.

"It's either me or it's not"

This constant conversion has marked everything in my life and has created a sense of an unknowing reality.

I was sitting in a night service at the Christ in Youth conference that I was helping with last week and the speaker communicated this idea very clearly. He had a clear box with the name Jesus written boldly in black. He was holding a small green ball and had started his message with where he found his identity when he was younger. At first it was his older brother, then it was sports, then it was his girlfriend, then it was being a pastor's kid. His identity was masked in something other than Christ. He came to find his identity in Christ and when he came to that he threw his little green ball in the big bin that had Jesus' name on it.

He paralleled this idea with Simon from the New Testament. The idea that Simon had been following Jesus around for two years. He had been following his principles, his advice, his conversation. Simon had listened to the parables and had seen the miracles performed. He watched Jesus walk on water and sit with the prostitutes at dinner. He watched this man overcome all of humanities natural abilities.

But there was a moment where Simon stopped following Jesus around and started following Jesus, Himself. It was a moment when Jesus asked the disciples "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They answered, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets,"

Then Jesus asks the question that transforms Simon forever,

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."

After this answer Jesus gave Peter a new name and a new identity because he had stopped following Jesus around and became hidden in Jesus' identity.

Nothing revolutionary happens when you just follow Jesus' principles or when you just hang around with Christians.
Nothing revolutionary happens when you just hang out at church.
Nothing revolutionary happens when you are a 'good' and 'moral' person.

Something happens when your identity is hidden in Christ. A new identity, a new fresh start, a new name, and a new community are the reality of your new life.

Don't be obsessed with Christ.

Don't replace your flesh addiction with a Christ addiction.

Hide your life in Christ.

If you play hide and seek with the world and you hide in Christ the world will lose the game.