Young Adults' Group

The Mending Of Our Lives

by Pastor Mark
July 09, 2015

The work of discipleship in our lives

As we seek to be disciples of the Lord, we must look at many aspects to the work of discipleship in our life. It involves following the Lord. We learn to give up the things of the world so as to gain life on this earth and not lose it. Our challenge is to understand what discipleship is all about and to see the Lord changing our lives as we strive to be His disciple.

The Lord Jesus’ work in our lives

The work of discipleship is very much the work of the Lord Jesus in our lives. He taught the disciples, corrected them, set an example for them to follow and inspired them. What the disciples of the Lord became finally was very much due to the spiritual work that He did in their heart, mind and spirit. Part of the work that He did was the mending of their lives.

The mending of nets

One of the daily chores of a fisherman was the mending of nets. Each time after a day’s fishing, it was crucial that he mends his nets so as to ensure that the next time when he used his net, there would not be holes for the fish to escape. The repair work on the nets had to be done.

The disciples also had to mend their nets. Mark recorded, “When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets.” (Mark 1:19) How should we see this idea of the mending of nets in the context of discipleship?

The mending of our lives

The word ‘mending” in Greek is “katartizó.” It means “To fit together or to prepare”. The word is used by the Lord Jesus as He taught His disciples, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40) The phrase “perfectly trained” in the Greek is also “katartizó”. A disciple is meant to be completely and thoroughly trained by the Lord.

As such, we can see the phrase “mending of the net’ as something symbolic. It is symbolic of the need of repair work in the lives of the Lord’s disciples. There were areas that were affected by sin. There were problems in their lives that had damaged them in more ways than one. They were in need of the mending work of the Lord in their lives.

We too are in need of the Lord Jesus to do the work of repairing our lives. Let us be challenged to look the Lord Jesus and seek His mending work.

Becoming men who can truly catch men

Through the complete “mending” work of our lives, we would be able to see ourselves growing and developing. We would become more like the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus taught that a disciple is not above his teacher but it is good enough for him to be like his teacher. It would be something really wonderful to work towards being more like our Teacher.

We have every potential to be a fisher of men. But we need to be mended first. The Lord has to do a great work of restoration in us. Let us be challenged to look to the Lord Jesus to mend us…to repair us so that we may become more like Him.

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