"following Jesus is first and foremost not heroic" - John Piper

“Jesus is followed as “the Lamb of God,” the sin-remover of the world...The connection between verses 36 and 37 means that the reason that John the Baptist’s disciples left John and followed Jesus is because Jesus is the sin-remover. Verse 36: John said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And so in verse 37: The two disciples “heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” This means that discipleship is first and foremost the expressed need for a savior from our sins.

In other words following Jesus is first and foremost not heroic. I’m desperate, I’m a sinner, I need a Savior. I’m not like David’s mighty men following David - “we’re gonna protect him, if he wants water, we’ll get water, we will not let anything happen to our king.” That’s not the way you follow Jesus. You follow him the way sheep follow the shepherd—because you need to be protected. We need to have our sins forgiven. We are weak, and he is strong. We are foolish, and he is wise. We are hungry, and he is bread. We are thirsty, and he is living water.

The point of the connection between verses 36 and 37 is that following Jesus calls attention to his strength, not ours. His goodness, not ours. His wisdom, not ours. Jesus made this crystal clear, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). The reason these two disciples of John left him and followed Jesus was because Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are sinners. And he is a sin-remover.”

– John Piper

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2008/3439_We_Have_Found_the_Messiah

"Desires towards God" - C H Spurgeon

“There is a measure of believing in every true desire after believing. If you say, “I desire to trust Christ,” why, soul, you trust Him already in some degree, since you believe that He is the kind of Person whom it would be right to trust!... Your desire to cast yourself wholly upon Christ has in it the beginning of saving faith! And you have love, too. I am sure of it! Did ever a man desire to love that which he did not love already? You have already some affection toward the Lord Jesus, some drawings of your heart Christwards, or else you would not sigh and cry to be more filled with it. He who loves most is the very man who most passionately desires to love more. Love and desire keep pace in Christians so that the more love, the more desire to love; and so I gather that this desire of yours to love Jesus is a sure evidence that you love Him already! Your desire is the smoke which proves that there is fire in your soul. A living flame lingers among the embers and, with a little fanning, it will reveal itself! Your desire to serve God is obedience! Your desire to pray is prayer! Your desire to praise is praise! I am sure, also, that you have some hope, for a man does not continue to groan out before his God and to make his desire known unless he has some hope that his desire will be satisfied and that his grief will be relieved. David lets out the secret of his own hope, for he says in the 15th verse, “In You, O Lord, do I hope.” You, my downcast brother, do not hope anywhere else, do you? You know that every other door is shut; every other road is blocked up except that which leads from your soul to God. I know you have some hope and, therefore, if you have no hope anywhere else I am persuaded that you have a hope in God!”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Desires towards God: a sermon for the weak

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1564.pdf

"It is in Jesus, the Crucified One, I must abide" - Andrew Murray

"It is in Jesus, the Crucified One, I must abide...
All the grace which Jesus the Saving One gives is given only in the path of fellowship with Jesus the Crucified One. Christ came and took my place; I must put myself in His place, and abide there. And there is but one place which is both His and mine - that place is the Cross. His in virtue of His free choice; mine by reason of the curse of sin. He came there to seek me; there alone I can find Him.
When He found me there, it was the place of cursing; this He experienced, for "cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). He made it a place of blessing; this I experienced, for Christ has delivered us from the curse, being made a curse for us (v. 13). When Christ comes in my place, He remains what He was, the beloved of the Father; but in the fellowship with me He shares my curse and dies my death. When I stand in His place, which is still always mine, I am still what I was by nature, the accursed one, who deserves to die; but united to Him, I share His blessing, and receive His life. When He came to be one with me He could not avoid the Cross, for the curse always points to the Cross as its end and fruit. And when I seek to be one with Him, I cannot avoid the Cross either, for nowhere but on the Cross are life and deliverance to be found. As inevitably as my curse pointed Him to the Cross as the only place where He could be fully united to me, His blessing points me to the Cross too as the only place where I can be united to Him. He took my cross for His own; I must take His Cross as my own; I must be crucified with Him. It is as I abide daily, deeply in Jesus the Crucified One, that I shall taste the sweetness of His love, the power of His life, the completeness of His salvation.”

- Andrew Murray

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/5f00.0562/5f00.0562.11.htm

"Living in Union with Christ" - Walter Marshall

"The key to living a holy life is union with Christ…
In order to keep the law of God, your soul must be empowered out of the fullness of Christ. The power to live a holy life is something that is produced in you by Christ, and treasured up for you in Him. Sanctification is similar to justification in this sense. In justification, you are justified by a righteousness earned by Christ and credited to you. In sanctification, Christ lived a completely holy life, and He imparts to you a holy disposition as you live in Him.
Think of it this way. The 1st Adam fell into sin, & because you were in union with him as the head of the human race, you inherited a sinful nature from him. Now that you are in union with Christ, He begins to impart His godly nature to you. In other words, you do not produce a godly nature by yourself, out of yourself. Rather, you take it to yourself by receiving it from Christ. Through fellowship with Him, you begin to receive that holy frame of mind which is in Christ Himself. This is such a great mystery, it is difficult to understand…
This is the key error Christians fall into in their lives: they think that even though they have been justified by a righteousness produced totally by Christ, they must be sanctified by a holiness produced totally by themselves."

- Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification
http://www.monergismbooks.com/The-Gospel-Mystery-of-Sanctification-Paperback-p-17152.html

“Trusting Him to keep you” - Andrew Murray

"I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:12 (KJV)
“I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 3:12 (NASB)

“This connection between Christ's work and our work is beautifully expressed in the words of Paul: "I follow after, if that I may apprehend that whereunto I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus." It was because he knew that the mighty and the faithful One had grasped him with the glorious purpose of making him one with Himself, that he did his utmost to grasp the glorious prize. The faith, the experience, the full assurance, "Christ hath apprehended me," gave him the courage and the strength to press on and apprehend that whereunto he was apprehended. Each new insight of the great end for which Christ had apprehended and was holding him, roused him afresh to aim at nothing less.”

“You can trust Him to keep you trusting and abiding…It is because Jesus has taken hold of me, & because Jesus keeps me, that I dare to say: Savior, I abide in You”

“The idea they have of grace is this--that their conversion and pardon are God's work, but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually, and become hopeless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness. No, wandering one; as it was Jesus who drew you when He spake "Come," so it is Jesus who keeps you when He says "Abide." The grace to come and the grace to abide are alike from Him alone.”

- Andrew Murray

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/5f00.0562/5f00.0562.03.htm

“a test whether you’re well learned in God’s Word” - John Calvin

“Many will brag that they be well learned in God’s Word: but the true trial to know whither [whether] it be so or no, is if we perceive how great need we have, that God should pour out his mercy upon us, to succor us by drawing us out of the gulf of Hell, and thereupon conclude that we cannot be cleansed and washed from any of all our spots, but by the blood of God’s son: nor obtain righteousness but by the obedience that he hath yielded: nor have any satisfaction for us but by the sacrifice that he hath offered: nor come in God’s favor but by his means: nor open our mouths to call upon him but by his intercession. Therefore when we be thoroughly persuaded of the gracious benefits that are brought us by the son of God: then may we say we have some understanding in the Gospel: but without that, we have nothing but imagination and folly. Mark that for one point.”

- John Calvin

"The cross is the school of orthodoxy" - C.H. Spurgeon

“if you want to be kept right and sound in the faith, the first thing is to get the right subject fixed in the center of your hearts- Jesus Christ crucified. Paul says that he preached that. He set Jesus forth. Whatever else he might not have made clear, he did set forth the person and work of Jesus Christ. Beloved, settle this in your soul, that your sole hope and the main subject of your meditation shall always be Jesus Christ. Whatever I do not know, O my Lord, help me to know Thee. Whatever I do not believe, enable me to believe Thee, and to trust Thee, and to take Thy every word as the very truth of God. Beloved, away with the religion that has little of Christ in it. Christ must be Alpha and Omega, first and last. The religion that is made up of our doings and our feelings and our willings is a falsehood. Our religion must have Christ for the foundation, Christ as the cornerstone, Christ as the topstone; and if we are not based and bottomed, grounded and settled upon him, our religion is vain...The cross is the school of orthodoxy. Endeavour to keep there."

- Charles Spurgeon

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1546.pdf