Read Mark 1:16-20
Jesus begins his ministry in Mark 1:15 by saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe.” For Jesus to ask people to repent and believe is to spiritualize following Jesus. The call to follow Jesus in verse 17 shows us in the physical life what it looks like to “repent and believe”. These first followers immediately left what they were doing and followed after Jesus.
We, in turn, can relate this call to both our spiritual and physical lives. Sometimes, to follow Jesus is very physical. It could mean leaving your job, selling your home to move to a place God is leading you, or to start a physical ministry in an area of town.
But the call of God to repent and believe, to follow, will always be true in the spiritual world. God may not be calling you to sell all you own, but he is certainly asking for you to submit to His ways. He may not be asking you to move to a new city, but he is asking you to take a spiritual journey with him into being a new creation. He may not be asking you to leave your employer, but God certainly wants to transform how you go about working, how you treat your co-laborers, and how you can transform the workplace.
See, Jesus operates in the physical realm and the spiritual. Often, we want to start with what is outside ourselves, changing those things, then changing the spirit. Jesus, instead, is creating in you a new heart, new eyes, a new tongue, a new person. And that new creation in Christ will transform the outer world.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:16-20
How does the call of the disciples relate to repenting and becoming a new creation? How does this look in the modern world?