Life beyond "Yes!" - For today's full-text click here
(We encourage everyone to read the full text. We hold each other accountable as we pray, read and engage the Bible. If you feel the text has not been handled well please comment and give thoughtful correction. This is what Scripture means when it encourages us to wrestle with the Bible and mentally struggle with it and inwardly digest it.)
"Peter, do you love Me?" In this question Peter found restoration. Three times he was asked and three times he responded "Yes." Following the third 'yes' Jesus began the commissioning of Peter with the words: "Follow me." From that moment, Peter's life changed and Peter himself was transformed. Following Christ has both affect and effect; following Christ looks like something. There is a change, a difference between life before Christ and life after our 'yes' to Him.
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| 4th Century Etchings of Peter and Paul |
As we read the Bible carefully we will see that human history spins out of control not when we follow Jesus, not when we trust God, not when we act obediently in love, but rather when we seem incapable of being Christ-followers.
The Acts of the Apostles which we read from last week, is a wonderful testimony to the very advent of the Church. It is also a sad testimony to the very root of our theological drifting from Jesus and the teachings He gave us through the Apostles. Avarice, lust, pride, dishonesty, and idolatry begin to fracture and fragment the Book of Acts churches even as the Gospel penetrates the darkness of first-century human civilization. Heresies spring up remarkably quickly to accommodate, modulate and excuse our sin. One can almost hear the echo of Eden as self-styled leaders begin to shape teaching: surely Jesus did not say THAT! Surely He did not mean that literally!! Yet, as we look closer, the Book of Acts reveals the radically Christ-following Church; a remnant that stands within the dust of fracture and fragmentation proclaiming the radical Gospel grounded upon the self-giving Love Jesus calls us to live. That remnant Church is the Church we are called to be. In that remnant Church, persecuted, impoverished and imprisoned we see what we are called to be - Christ's Body.
Will we be Christ's Body reaching out to all the world, or, will we seek every 'if, and, or but' to excuse and modify God's command and commission?
"My child, do you love Me?" What will your 'yes' look like?
For today's full-text click here
What will your 'yes' look like?
