What if the one command Jesus made unmistakable is the one we’ve quietly sidelined? In Be With Me, part of the Discipleship Matters series, Kelly Kinder asks that unsettling question and leads us back to the heartbeat of the Great Commission: as you are going, make disciples—not by adding more church activity, but by staying close to Jesus so his life flows through ours.
Working from Mark 3, Kelly traces Jesus’ simple rhythm—come and see, follow me, be with me, go for me—and shows why “be with me” is the engine of transformation. Jesus didn’t merely select twelve; he made twelve, forming something new through a relationship of proximity and purpose. Kelly highlights Jesus’ circles of influence—the crowds, the seventy-two, the twelve, the three—and the deeper access and change that come as we move closer to him. The result is what Acts 4:13 describes: ordinary people recognized as those who had been with Jesus.
Two pictures anchor the message. First, the yoke: take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Kelly reframes the yoke as life beside a stronger, trained companion. Yoked to Christ, we unlearn un-Christlike reflexes, grow faith over fear, practice agape love, bear fruit that lasts, and learn daily self-denial. Second, the vine: remain in me. Abiding becomes staying—holding firm to our identity (he is the vine, we are branches, the Father is the gardener), practicing consistency when teachings are hard, embracing dependency because apart from him we can do nothing, and trusting sufficiency as Jesus meets needs with leftovers that feed even the servers.
Kelly then puts handles on the vision with a “small circle” plan you can start this week. Invite one person, ask them to invite one more, and journey as three through the Gospel of Mark for sixteen weeks. Read one chapter a week, pray directly from the text, capture one insight and one concrete application, meet briefly to share and pray, gather monthly around a table to deepen trust, and multiply at the end. It’s lightweight, Scripture-first, and built to reproduce—shifting us from consuming content to transferring life.
If you’ve tried everything else, try what Jesus actually asked us to do. Watch this message, ask Jesus for your “one,” and begin a circle that keeps you close to him and carries his life to others. In a world of noise and drift, being with Jesus is still how ordinary people become catalysts for extraordinary change.
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