The Lord is reordering His Church. He is examining our hearts to see if we are truly following Him or a muddled and confused version of Him and His Kingdom.

After the crowd saw Jesus feed the five thousand, something happened. “When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, ‘Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!’ When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself” (John 6:14-15).

The perfect Lord will not allow Himself to be shackled to an imperfect human system and become its ruler. He will slip away from such attempts to make Him king of any earthly system. None of these systems can fully represent the Lord or His mission. We can contend for truth to be expressed in these systems, but ultimately, Jesus will slip away from such attempts.

When Jesus did not agree with being forced to be their king, He refused the offer and slipped away. “At this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him” (vs. 66).

Following Jesus will thin out the ranks of our faith. Don’t be surprised when this happens. The Lord knows who will follow Him as King of Kings and who will demand that He become a lesser version of His true kingly role.

Our pledge of allegiance must be singular and only focused on Jesus. All other pledges, though noble-sounding, will lead us to a place of compromise in our allegiance to the Lord.

The Lord’s words of invitation to His first disciples were, “Come, and follow Me.” That invitation was spoken at the beginning of the first disciple’s journey of faith and has been repeated to all of us who would live somewhere in the future who also decided to follow Him.

“Come, follow Me” is a repeated invitation being offered now to the Church when people want an earthly king to follow instead of following the resurrected Lord. Only Jesus has authority over all earthly kingdoms, institutions, and governments. His leadership is the only one we can trust and follow.