Beginning to Follow Jesus.
by David Silvester
After Jesus was baptised, two of John’s disciples began to follow Jesus, one of which was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. They had been disciples of John the Baptist but when they were told that Jesus was the Lamb of God they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and asked them what they were seeking. And they simply said “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
After this Andrew found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We’ve found the Messiah”. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at Simon and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
Andrew was one of those disciples of Jesus we read little of in the Gospels, but he was the kind of man who could get alongside people. For example we find in John 6:8 that it was Andrew who found the boy with the five loaves and two fish, and brought them to Jesus. Then Jesus was able to feed a multitude of five thousand men, besides women and children. There could have been more than fifteen thousand who were fed that day!
So often many Christians feel they have to be busy ‘doing things for Jesus’, more than ‘being what He has called them to be’. Andrew was the kind of example we can learn much from, in that he was in the right place at the right time, and in the right condition, so he could be used by God. We’re not told that much about the conversation between Andrew and Peter before they came to follow Jesus, or about what Andrew said to the boy, or how he persuaded him to give his lunch to Jesus. All we know is that these things proved very effective.
One of the results of Andrew bringing his brother Peter to Jesus was that Peter powerfully preached to the crowd, just after Pentecost, and three thousand were added to the followers of Jesus that day. The lesson for us is that it’s more important to be close to Jesus than busy ‘doing’. So many people think they’re more effective as Christians when they’re seen to be ‘doing’, rather than simply being with Jesus.
Prayer: O Lord God, please help me to be a follower of Jesus who’s more like Andrew, not someone who’s just busy doing things. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
David Silvester is married and has a son, two daughters and eight grandchildren. He trained as a production engineer. He then moved on to become a lecturer of engineering craft skills before being called of God in his early fifties to become a pastor of a Baptist church. He says that,"having previously experienced an amazing healing on a day others expected me to die, it came as no surprise that God directed me and my wife, Margaret, to become involved with Ellel Ministries."
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