Today, right now, these words of Jesus still stand as a command and a call and a challenge and a welcome to all people and to each human being, to each human soul. Some people who heard Jesus did follow Him; this is the story of the New Testament. What did the first disciples, in the Bible, learn as they followed Jesus? They learned that He had compassion for the sick, that He had mercy for sinners, and that He had power over all creation as its King. Each of Jesus's disciples would come to understand that they, too, were deeply in need of help and moral mercy from Jesus, that He was not only merciful and compassionate, but He was Holy and Mighty. The disciples learned and experienced that Jesus had come to bring them God's forgiveness, His righteousness, and His gift of eternal, personal salvation, through the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, and in the coming of His Holy Spirit.