Follow Me

Matthew 9:9-12; Luke 5:1-11

Our true story comes from a part of the Bible called the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew was a disciple of Jesus. That means Jesus was his teacher. Our true story also comes from a part of the Bible called the Gospel of Luke. Luke loved Jesus and wanted others to know and love Jesus, too. And the word gospel means “good news!”

Our true story is about the first twelve people who followed Jesus. They were called the disciples.


Peter and Andrew were fishermen. One day, while Peter and Andrew were fishing, Jesus told them, “Follow Me!”


And Peter and Andrew followed Jesus!


James and his brother John were fishermen too. They were working with their dad when Jesus said, “Follow Me!” And James and John followed Jesus too!


In the next town, Jesus found a man named Phillip!


Phillip followed Jesus and brought his friend Nathanael.


Nathanael to follow Jesus too!


Next, we have Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector and had made a lot of bad choices. But Jesus still loved Matthew and wanted to be his friend. Jesus told Matthew, “Come, follow Me.” And Matthew did! Matthew followed Jesus! 


There was also Thomas and James . . . Thaddeus and Simon and Judas!


Jesus had twelve disciples! That was His first team. Go team! But that’s not all of this story, because Jesus isn’t done yet!


Jesus wants YOU to be on His team too . . . and your friends . . . and your family . . . because Jesus loves everyone, and Jesus wants everyone to be His friend forever! So, when someone asks you, “Who wants to be your friend forever?” You can say, “Jesus wants to be my friend forever!”






Bible Paraphrase: “I have called you friends.” —John 15:15, NIV

Text Truth: Jesus wants everyone to follow Him.



Family Devotional

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
—Matthew 9:9

In our Bible Story, Jesus told twelve people to follow Him. Those twelve people became Jesus’ friends, the disciples. Jesus wanted His disciples to help Him tell everyone, everywhere that Jesus wants EVERYONE to follow Him! It doesn’t matter where you live, what you look like, what your job is, what language you speak, what you’ve done . . . Jesus wants EVERYONE to be His friend forever! And that means Jesus wants to be YOUR friend forever!

“I have called you friends.” —John 15:15, NIV

With your family, take a piece of paper and make a list of people. Have each family member list the name of a person. They can be any person you can think of because Jesus wants everyone to follow Him and be His friend!

Pray with your family. Allow any family members to pray if they wish. In your own words, say, “Dear God, thank You for sending Jesus to be friends with everyone. We pray that (read the list your family made) will follow Jesus. And I pray that (name each family member) will follow Jesus too. We love You, God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

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Story illustrations are made possible by a joint venture of Good News Productions, International and College Press Publishing Co. Artist. Paula Nash Giltner (http://www.theglobalgospel.org).  FreeBibleimages (http://freebibleimages.org) have been granted permission to make these images freely available for personal, teaching and ministry use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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