I Have Decided to Follow Jesus:

Let me ask you something simple, but sit with it for just a moment. What would you do if following Jesus cost you everything? Not your comfort. Not your reputation. Everything.  Most of us, if we're honest, haven't had to answer that question with our lives on the line. We face pressure, sure. We face moments where following Jesus is inconvenient, unpopular, maybe even painful. But there's a man whose story most of us know without even realizing it. Every time we sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus," we are singing his testimony. And once you hear where those words actually came from, you will never sing that song quite the same way again.

 

His name was Nokseng. He was a member of the Garo tribe in Assam, India, living in the mid-1800s. When missionaries arrived in his region following a wave of revival that had spread from Wales all the way to North-East India, Nokseng heard the gospel and believed. He and his family — his wife and his children — became the very first converts in their village. Can you imagine the courage that took? To be the first ones to say yes to Jesus when everyone around you is saying no?  It didn't take long for the trouble to start. The village chief was furious. He summoned Nokseng and his family and gave them a choice: renounce Jesus, or die. Simple as that.  Nokseng looked at that chief and said quietly, calmly, with everything on the line — "I have decided to follow Jesus."  The chief ordered his two children killed on the spot.  Think about that. Yet, standing over the bodies of his children, the chief turned to Nokseng one more time and gave him another chance to walk away. To make it stop.  Nokseng's answer? "Though none go with me, still I will follow."  His wife was then executed.  Now Nokseng stood alone. No children. No wife. Just a man, and his Jesus, and a chief with one final demand. And Nokseng, without flinching, spoke his last words on this earth: "The world behind me, the cross before me."  And they killed him.  But here's what happened next. The village chief — the very man who ordered those executions — was so shaken by what he had witnessed that he eventually gave his life to Christ. A revival broke out in that region. The blood of one faithful family became the seed of a harvest.  Those words Nokseng spoke — "I have decided to follow Jesus, though none go with me, still I will follow, the world behind me, the cross before me" — those weren't just last words. They became a hymn. They became our hymn. And they deserve to mean something when we sing them.

In Romans 8:35, because I believe this is exactly what was holding Nokseng up in that moment. Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"  Paul wasn't speaking in theory. He was speaking from experience — and so was Nokseng.  But here's the thing I want you to grab hold of today. The love of Christ is not conditional on your circumstances staying comfortable. It doesn't turn off when the pressure turns up. When Nokseng was standing over his children, the love of Jesus did not leave the room. When his wife was taken, the love of Jesus did not walk out the door. That love was right there, holding a man upright when every human reason to stand had been stripped away.  And that same love — that exact same love — is holding you right now.

Now, someone might say, "But Doug, God didn't rescue Nokseng. God didn't save his children or his wife. Where's the encouragement in that?"  And that's a fair, honest question. So let me take you to Daniel chapter 3.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were standing before their own version of a furious king, being told to bow down or be thrown into a fire. And listen to what they said in verses 17 and 18: "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."  Did you catch that? "He is able. He will. But if not — we're still not bowing." 

That is not blind faith. That is not weak faith. That is the most mature, rooted, unshakeable faith a human being can possess. It's a faith that says, "I trust God's goodness whether or not He changes my circumstances." Nokseng had that faith. Faith that holds on even when the outcome is painful? That kind of faith moves village chiefs. That kind of faith starts revivals. That kind of faith outlives the person who carries it.

Can I encourage you today? The same Jesus who stood with Nokseng in that village is standing with you right now. The same love that Romans 8:35 declares cannot be separated from you — that love is active, it is present, and it is personal. You are not alone in the following.  And like those three young men in Babylon, you don't have to know the outcome to trust the One who holds it.  So here is your encouragement today: make Nokseng's words your own. Not just when you're singing on a Sunday morning, but in the quiet moments when it actually costs you something. Let your heart say it — the world behind me, the cross before me. I have decided to follow Jesus.  No turning back. No turning back.