I Will Make You (Mark 1:17)

There is something fascinating about a teacher taking a group of students and training them up to be an effective team, work force or unit. A team of raw beginners in sport is assembled and put under an experienced coach. Soon they acquire new skills, learn how to work with each other, build up their fitness and start winning matches. As they do so, they grow in confidence and competence.

This is what Jesus did with his disciples. They were a motley group of ordinary working men. Jesus called them, taught them, lived with them, discussed things with them, prayed with them, chided them, demanded sacrifice of them. Over a three-year period he moulded them. Then he sent them out to the task of mission for which he had schooled them. They fulfilled that mission.

When he calls you, Jesus says to you, “I will make you.” He does not make all people “fishers of men”. But however raw in religious terms you may be, however lacking in knowledge, however deficient in self-confidence, however unprepared in personal development, however sparse your talents might be, Jesus still promises to make you what you are not yet. He sees the potential in you which you cannot see in yourself. He knows the finished product he will make of you. However young and inexperienced you may be, or however old and ‘past it’, Jesus can make something of you. Are you willing to hear his call and to be crafted by him?

Bro David Banda Yelulani (Banket, Zimbabwe)