Fan... Or Follower?

I'm sure that everyone who goes to my church already knows aaaaall about this.  But it's still a great thing to talk about.  The question is: are you a fan or a follower of Jesus?  Fans know everything about the person (or in this case, God) they idolize.  In the case of a pop star, or sports player, or anyone you look up to, you know their likes and dislikes, where they live, what they do, who they're dating at the moment, blah, blah, blah.  You may have never met them before, but you still know tons of stuff about them.  With God, you may know every single book of the Bible and the Fruits of the Spirit in order, every king in Israel's history, and the exact year that Jesus died on the cross, but, really, do you honestly know him?  As my pastor said, we don't need to be Jesus' fans... We need to be Jesus' groupies!

If you love a certain person, you want to talk to them every day, all the time.  It never gets old.  You want to be with that person... you want to experience life with them, have them near you all the time.  You share every detail of your life with that person--nothing's hidden from them.   That's how it should be with God.  Even though He already knows everything you do, speak, and think, He still likes to hear it from you.  He wants you to desire to talk to Him, share the details of your day.  God doesn't desire a distant relationship... He desires an intimate love relationship.  And you don't have to worry about giving Him your heart because He'll never, ever leave you. Even when it seems like He has, He hasn't.

I know it's so hard with all that goes on in your life.  And God's not exactly a person in the flesh that you can sit down and talk to.  You have people pulling you every which way and you never know if you're doing exactly what God wants.  I have to check myself constantly to make sure I'm not making decisions with my emotions instead of what God wants.  But I know that if I stay on the right path and keep going with God, everything in my life will turn out fine.  Yours too!

So here's the question: are you a fan or are you a follower?