Follow and Go

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

FOLLOW AND GO

Mark 3:13-19

13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve — designating them apostles-that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. 16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

NIV

Jesus picks the twelve who he will pour his truth into for the expressed purpose of having them caring on with the Gospel after he is resurrected to the right hand of the Father. Why did Jesus pick these twelve men? Was there anything special about them? Surely we know some of them better than other, such as Peter, Matthew, Thomas, Andrew and of course Judas. But they all were called out and appointed as ambassadors of the Gospel, officially a commissioner of Christ (with miraculous powers). That does make then quite different than any of us. It was only those twelve who were called to be Apostles. But we all have still been called to be ambassadors of Christ. We do not have our citizenship in this world, but in the Kingdom of God and we represent of King in this foreign land we now reside in. But does that mean we should not be able to exhibit miraculous powers? Have we not been given the gifts of the Spirit which in every sense are miraculous, in fact, one of them is the gift of miracles. There are those among us who would teach those powers stopped with the Apostles, but the fact remains the gifts are forever, well at least until the end comes. Have we just taken some of the scripture to heart and left other parts untouched? Do we only pay attention to the sections we want to and forfeit the rest? Sure this is about the history or the events of the life of Christ and some of his activities, but it is also about showing us Jesus and his call on our lives as well. Does he pick certain ones to do certain things? It would appear so and we still see that today. Some have surely been called into special tasks such as those who are called to shepherd the flock. Pastors are far more then preachers of the Gospel. Anyone can learn to preach if they put their minds to it. They merely have to go to some Bible school sit through all the classes, learn all the technics of proper sermon principles then put out there resume and look to be hired by some church, but to shepherd God’s people takes a calling and an empowering of the Spirit. Yet we all have been called to preach the Gospel in a sense. We have been called to be his witnesses, to testify to what happened in our lives. We have all been called by Jesus to follow him. We all have been told to go. So we follow and we go.