When Jesus says “Follow me,” he is not inviting us to learn new information or adopt new moral behaviour. He is calling for something deeper, going to the core of our identity. Following Jesus is a summons to align our loves and longings with his own. It is a call to desire what God desires; to hunger and thirst for God and his way of life. In essence, it’s a call to treasure the kingdom of God, that glorious reality where God is all in all.
This call is not about surface-level compliance. It is about transformation at the level of desire.
Following Jesus Implies Reordering Our Desires
The reordering of love is at the heart of Christian discipleship—not just knowledge or moral performance. As James K. A. Smith writes in his book You Are What You Love, “Discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing.”
We are lovers before we are thinkers. We move toward what we crave. Jesus knows the heart of man. So his call to follow him is also a call to reshape our desires according to his nature.
To follow Jesus is to begin the lifelong process of training our desires—not by white-knuckled self-will, but by the greater joy of knowing the sweetness of Christ.
Broken Cravings, Redeemed Longings
From the Garden of Eden onward, human beings have disordered desires. The Fall was not just a failure to obey; it was a misdirection of love. Eve “saw that the fruit was desirable.” She then reached for what looked appealing but led to ruin.
In a way, all sin is disordered desire. It is wanting the right thing in the wrong way or the wrong thing altogether.
But Jesus does not come to crush desire. He comes to redeem it. The Lord does not want us to stop desiring. He wants to become the ruling desire of our hearts. Following Jesus does not mean suppressing our desires. It means the Spirit of God will recalibrate our hearts to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
Consider David’s prayer: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 37:4).
As we delight in God, we find the joy for which God made our hearts.
Hunger and Thirst for the Right Feast
To follow Jesus is to develop an appetite for what satisfies us eternally. In a world offering spiritual junk food—power, control, pleasure, image—God invites us to a feast of grace, truth, peace, and joy. The spiritual life is not anti-hunger. It is about holy hunger. Following Jesus is about starving our appetite for the illusions of the world. It is about finding real satisfaction to our heart’s deepest hungers in the bread of life (John 6:35).
A Vision Worthy of Desire
The kingdom of God is shorthand for the rule of God in our hearts. It is when our desires submit to his pleasure. “Your kingdom come” is not merely a longing for a better world. It is a yearning for a reordered world—a renewed creation, redeemed people, and the dwelling of God with his people (Matt. 6:10, Rev. 21:1-4).
Following Jesus is to walk with him towards a world where:
- Justice rolls down like waters (Amos 5:24)
- Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13)
- Peace replaces striving (Phil. 4:6-7)
- God is central, not sidelined (Rev. 4:9-11)
This is not escapism. It is engagement. Following Jesus is a new and different way of living in the world. It is seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matt. 6:33).
How God Reorders Our Desires
If following Jesus is about reordering desires, then how does he do it?
God uses his ordinary means of grace and invites us to habits of grace.
- Worship retrains what we adore.
- Prayer re-centres what we trust.
- Scripture reshapes what we believe is true.
- Fasting rewires our hunger.
- Sabbath reorders our need to be in control.
- Service undermines our self-centred instinct.
Each spiritual habit is not just something we do. It is a way we become. Each one trains our hearts to desire what Jesus desires.
Letting Jesus Lead Our Longings
Jesus does not merely teach the truth. He is the lover of our soul—the one who shows us what real love looks like, what true longing sounds like, and what a life with properly ordered desires feels like.
Following Jesus means he leads our longings. It means we will sometimes refuse what we ask, so we can receive what he provides. It means trusting that he not only knows what is right, but what will ultimately satisfy (Ps. 63:3, 90:14).
Following Jesus Today
Jesus still says, “Follow me.”
Not just with your feet.
Not only with your mind.
But with your heart, soul, and desire.
Our Lord is not afraid of your hunger. He wants to satisfy it with his truth. Jesus is not appalled by your cravings. He wants to redeem them. He is not demanding a dead ritual. Rather, he is offering living desire (Rom. 12:1-2).
Following Jesus means discovering that your deepest desires were not too strong, but too shallow. And only in him do our hearts finally find someone worthy of our desire.
A Prayer of Surrender
Lord Jesus, shape my heart to love what you love.
Reorder my desires to align with yours.
Let me hunger and thirst for your kingdom, where you are all in all.
I want to follow you—not just with my feet—but with my affections.
You alone are worthy of my longing.
Such is the heart of discipleship and a life led by loving Jesus.
It is not a perfect one, but an offered one.
And that is enough for Jesus to begin his beautiful work of reordering our desires.
