Lots of people define Christianity as doing what God/Jesus says.  It’s all about “obedience”.  But what if doing what Jesus says isn’t what Jesus said at all?   Jesus said “Follow Me” and He invited people who didn’t believe and certainly didn’t have gold stars for behaviour - and they followed!  Why?  There was something about Jesus that was completely comfortable with people who weren’t anything like Him and people who weren’t anything like Jesus were completely comfortable with Him.  Nothing disqualifies you from the invitation - not sin, not unbelief.

Jesus invited everyone and it wasn’t an invitation to religion - instead it was a very personal invitation to a relationship with Him.  To express that Jesus used examples of vine and branches, shepherd and sheep and Father and children and friendship.  The question isn’t how far along on our spiritual journey we are, how much we know or how much we do but whether we’re following where Jesus is walking?