Is Jesus just a nice idea?

Mike and I have been apart of the Couples on Christ small group for the. last 8 weeks and We have just finished the study, "Not a Fan" by Kyle Idleman. This blog post will be based on that study because God used it to grab me in a BIG way last Sunday and I still cannot let go. In the last DVD clip of the study Kyle tells the following story,

let's say my wife and I plan to go out of town for a month and ask a young couple to house sit for us. We leave them a binder of everything they need to know while we are gone. It includes, when to water the plants, what day the trash goes out, how to care for our pets, etc. and upon returning from our trip we pull up to the house and it becomes obvious that the trash was never put out. We look into the backyard and we see a pet cemetery. Before we can get inside he couple greets us in the driveway with joy and smiles. They are holding the binder we left and are quick to show us all of the pages they have highlighted, they can even recite word for word some of the directions. They realize very quickly that we are not impressed with their knowledge. It doesn't matter how well they know the directions if they never actually followed them.

Is the word of God like that today? Do we pride ourselves in reading, underlining, highlighting even memorizing......but what about living it out? The basis of this small group study was to spend time recognizing the difference between a fan of Jesus (someone who simply likes the concept, may even underline, highlight and memorize the concepts) and a follower of Jesus, (someone willing to risk it all to live for Christ).

In Matthew 7:13-14 we are told that the path is narrow and only a few will take it. V14 "But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it." Am I, are you, one of the few? Or do we simply have a few nice concepts committed to memory and a book with underlines and highlights?

Aimee