Mark 2:15 — And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many, and they followed him.

What are you committed to?
I am committed to being of slightly more use to the kingdom this year than last year. It’s not a great commitment, but I’ve discovered that I’m not that great at great commitments, but that I can usually handle the small ones.
The Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations contains the following:

Away among the Alleghenies there is a spring, so small that a single ox could drain it dry on a summer day. It steals its unobtrusive way among the hills, till it spreads out into the beautiful Ohio: thence it stretches away a thousand miles, leaving on its banks more than a hundred villages and cities, and many thousand cultivated farms, and bearing on its bosom more than half a thousand steamboats. Then joining the Mississippi, it stretches away some twelve hundred miles or more, until it falls into the great ocean.

You might wonder what connection I’m making. It’s pretty simple. If everyone reading this makes the same small commitment that I’m making we’ll have a trickle of commitments that has turned into, at least, a small river. If our commitments touch other people, and they touch others … maybe we’ll have a mighty ocean!
So what does this have to do with Jesus’s habit of dining with disreputable companions? That’s about the “how” of being just “slightly more use”. Most of my kingdom-related activities have been directed towards helping other believers. Jesus was much more interested, it seems to me, on those who were not (yet) saved. When the scribes and Pharisees complained about the publicans and sinners He said “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mark 2:17)
I’m going to try to touch a few people that I wouldn’t usually touch. Would you like to know how I’m going to do that? So would I! Just now, I have no idea!
It’s not always clear how God will honor our commitments — but it is sure that He will. Whatever is needed, God will provide. Whether it’s a physical need — as when He provides the ram for Abraham, or wisdom — according to His many promises in the Book of Proverbs, or spiritual guidance — according to Jesus’s promise in John 14:16, God will provide.
So how about it — what are you committed to. Want to join me in the river?