But as I started diving more deeply into the Word of God—and also looking at what was happening in places like China and Iran—I noticed something. Some of the fastest-growing churches in the world were approaching discipleship in a way that looked remarkably similar to the way Jesus taught discipleship: teaching people to actually obey the words of Jesus.
So I started an experiment.
I began taking students and young adults through the words of Christ, looking carefully at what Jesus actually said, and then asking a simple question:
What would it look like to actually follow this?
As we did that, I became increasingly convinced that it wasn’t enough to simply preach these things from a pulpit.
The words of Jesus needed to become part of everyday life. They needed to shape the way we walked with Him day after day.
That began the process of developing devotionals that people could work through at their own pace at home—creating space to intentionally see Jesus, hear His words, and respond to Him.
And the more I’ve studied the words of Jesus this way, the more I’ve realized that the kind of obedience the Lord desires doesn’t begin with trying harder to be righteous.
It begins with wanting to be with Him.
We obey Jesus because He loves us, because we love Him, and because we trust Him.
We trust His wisdom more than our own.
And as we learn to trust Him more than we trust ourselves, obedience becomes the natural response.
Personally, studying Scripture this way has transformed my walk with Jesus.
Jesus First is my attempt to share that way of following Him with the world.