Do You Have A Following

Proverbs 2:20

With all the different avenues of social media today it has changed the way teens think of the word following. On social media teens follow people and are alerted to whatever that person has posted. But they never think to ask themselves is this person a good leader. If not why would you follow them? But that is not the way that they think of the word. In reality it is the same.

In the Proverb for this lesson we see that there are two different aspects to following, who you are following and who is following you. Through this study we will look at some things associated with following and being followed from the word of God, and whether you realize it or not you are following someone and someone is following you.

As stated above there are two aspects to following. We will see these are shown in the Proverb below.

1)  You are following someone or something.

• This is seen in the first part of the Proverb, “walk in the way of good men”.
• You are walking in a path whether you realize it or not, and that path has a destination.
• The question is, is the destination where you want to end up?

2)  You are leaving a trail for someone to follow.

• This is seen in the second part of the Proverb, “keep the paths of the righteous”.
• When you walk the same path over and over again it will stay worn down and be a clear path for someone else to follow. Therefore if you walk in the paths of the righteous you will keep that path for those who are following you.

Some things we are told to follow in God’s word:

1)  Peace and things that edify (Romans 14:9)

• If we applied this to our social media as well as our life what and who would we have to not follow anymore?

2)  Charity (1 Corinthians 14:1)

• Following this goes without saying but do we really follow charity?

3)  That which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:15)

4)  Righteousness, Godliness, Faith, Love, Patience and Meekness (1 Timothy 6:11)

• If we stick to these things we will not have time for much else.

What is the goal of following? (Philippians 3:2)

As stated above every path leads somewhere. You have to decide where you want to be and see if the path that you are on is going to lead you to that destination. If not then get off that path and get on the right one.

 What follows you?

The second aspect of following is the path you are leaving behind for someone else to follow. Have you ever considered the path you are leaving behind? The truth is that most of us are so worried about what is in front of us we never even stop to think about what is behind us.

There are two things that we must realize is following after us:

1)  Others (2 Thessalonians 3:9)

• Everyone is an example to someone.

2)  Your works (Revelation 14:13)

• Everything you do is behind you and has consequences. They will either be good (Psalm 23:6) or bad (1 Timothy 5:24).

Do You Have A Following : Handout

Proverbs 2:20

1)  What are two things that we see from the verse for our study in regards to following?

2)  What are some things we are to study?

3)  What is the goal of following?

4)  What some things that follow after us?