Following, Becoming, Sharing

Following, Becoming, Sharing

  And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Mark 1.17

Those guys had no idea what they were about to experience when they accepted Jesus’ invitation. When Christ came to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fishing in their boat, he invited them to follow him into what was nothing short of a revolutionary life-changing, world-changing mission. The same invitation is for us today and it’s just as pressing as it was for those men.

Let’s take a look at that invitation, and what it means for those of us have chosen to accept it.

Following. “Follow me…” Jesus invites his disciples to pattern their lives after his own. He asks for their hearts, their minds and their hands. He uses his own life as an object lesson for we should live and love others. We don’t set the bar any lower for ourselves than the height of the Master himself, knowing of course that we will need to continue to reach up toward that bar and grow in our Christlikeness—driven not by guilt, but by conviction. 

We follow Jesus, wherever he leads us, despite discomfort, doubts, questions and pain. He is our Savior and Lord.

Becoming. “I will make you become…” As we continue to deepen our allegiance to Jesus in following his example, God works in our hearts, shapes our minds and trains our hands for his service. As we practice the discipline of Christianity, we are in an ongoing status of becoming more like Jesus. Our lives should be a visible upward (though sometimes not consistently upward) trajectory into greater faith.

We will never be Christ, but as we follow him, we will always find ourselves becoming more like him.

Sharing. “Fishers of men…” Christ had in mind that his original disciples would eventually learn how to appeal to people’s deepest need—spiritual renewal. Jesus spent his entire life modeling this for his own disciples, and pouring his love into them day by day in relationship. They saw what Jesus did for them, and later repeated the process in others—they knew that their faith was something that was meant to be shared. 

Jesus’ disciples love others the way that he did. This means that we are intentional about helping other people find the way back to Heaven.


So in short, who are those who are Jesus’ students? Those who are following Jesus, becoming like Jesus and sharing Jesus’ love.