One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--Ministry YearsSample

Talmidim: The One worthy 

Lord Jesus, 

When You chose Your disciples, You looked far down the road and saw not only who they were, but who they would be. Was it the same with me?

You knew when You said, "Follow Me,” that they wouldn’t sometimes. You knew how hard it would be for them to apply one day’s miracle to the next day’s crisis. Instead of it being maddening to You when they argued about who was the greatest (and didn’t even mention You), You showed them what greatness looks like. You wrapped a towel around Your waist and washed their feet. 

We easily give up on us. Somedays we boast clouds without rain. The thick-headed one who doesn’t remember yesterday’s miracle. The fearful one who lets a stranger carry Your cross.

Yet knowing all these things about us, You do not give up on us. You know that after years of following You that some of Your dust gets on our feet. Some things true about You become true about us. And when people look at us, they see things that teach them about You.

These disciples gave their lives for You, short or long. Help me be like them when they were like You. 

We want Peter’s kind of passion, who raced to the tomb at the hint You could be alive again—and then ran hard after You for the rest of His life. 

Like Andrew who lived forever in his brother Peter’s shadow, yet every time we meet him, he’s humble and unphased, bringing yet another person to You. 

Like Thomas who let You confront his dark side, and then believed in You. And didn’t stop believing for the rest of his life, telling others about You who had not seen and yet still believed. 

We want to be like John who stood by You at Your cross and for a lifetime after. Sixty years later, after everyone else from the team had died, he told the world about You so still more could believe. 

And Nathanael, whose pure love for You was without strategy or shades of gray.

And Matthew, the sharp opportunist You rescued from an empty, money-hungry life—that kind’s the kind of reversal we’re after.

Even James who served You quietly—like the millions who have followed in behind-the-scenes service ever since. We want to follow You that way.

We want to give our lives to You, Lord Jesus. Not just in the doing, but in the being. Help us be Your disciple, Your talmidim, who follows not just Your teaching but Your life.

This we ask, because You love us to the uttermost. 

Tomorrow: One on one with Jesus and His cousin, John