Category Archives: Just One Minute

Apr 07 2024
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Just One Minute

God’s Unexpected Choices

God can work through anybody! That is a vital lesson we can all learn from Acts 16.

In Acts 16, Paul takes the gospel for the first time to Europe. His venture plants a gospel beachhead in a pagan Roman colony, Philippi—through a woman. In Paul’s day, women were supposed to stay home, not start new and earthshaking movements. The woman, Lydia wasn’t even a native of the city, but came from Asia Minor.

She followed the God of the Jews, but there were not even enough Jews in Philippi to start a synagogue. So, she just met with a small band of other like-minded Gentile women at the riverbank. With this seemingly woeful and unnoticed group, Paul began his ministry—and ultimately changed a continent. As we read on, Lydia became a more dynamic believer and leader than anyone expected. Another example…

In those early days of ministry in Philippi, Paul and his companion-in-ministry, Silas, delivered a girl possessed of demons. That miracle unjustly landed them in jail because Paul ended the livelihood of those who exploited the poor girl’s misery for profit.

Instead of complaining, Paul and Silas praised God for His many blessings which outweighed their present trials. God responded with an earthquake that caused chaos in the prison. The jailer almost committed suicide, thinking all his prisoners had escaped, and he would now suffer death from his superiors for losing them.

This jailer was likely a cynical man hardened by the dregs of humanity. There was nothing religious or idealistic about him, and yet something about the lives of Paul and Silas touched him. In his sudden weakness, the shaken man approached them and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” That night, we are told, the jailer and his entire household—wife, children, relatives, servants—put their trust in Jesus Christ.

This unlikely woman, Lydia, and unnamed Roman jailer, along with his household, became part of the new fellowship of believers in Philippi. Every believer who comes from a European heritage or has received guidance through European believers ultimately owes a spiritual debt to these two unlikely people for an important reason…

The Philippian church did not become a self-centered, religious social club. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul praises the Philippians for their faith and vision for the lost. They were not content to keep the faith to themselves but joined Paul’s mission to deliver the faith to Thessalonica and the center of Rome itself.

Let us not forget that Paul himself was an unlikely messenger—a “Jew of the Jews,” a former terrorist and fanatic who became God’s messenger to the Gentiles he once despised.

The lesson is clear: never underestimate what God can do through you no matter what you or others may think of your abilities. God is always able to work in unexpected ways in unexpected people to accomplish His greater work.

I see this all the time as I meet with Indian evangelists and pastors. Again and again, IGO training centers graduate men and women from the most unlikely backgrounds whom God has called to do great things for the Kingdom.

What unlikely and unthinkable thing is God willing to do through you to affect lives and destinies of people for generations to come?

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Oct 21 2023
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Just One Minute

Impossible Victory

In times of crisis, we must know what to do to gain victory. Acts 12 gives us a good model.

In Acts 12, heavy persecution hit the Jerusalem group of Jesus followers. It came against them from the enemies with the most money, the strongest military and political power, and a long and established religious tradition. Herod Agrippa, who ordered the persecution, was a ruthless king who cared nothing for God nor man, only his own power. He wanted to do something to please the religious establishment.

Among those who died was James, apostle of the church, brother of John, son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’ three closest disciples. Peter waited in jail for public humiliation and certain death, delayed only by a religious holiday. We are told that he was guarded by 16 soldiers and chained to two of them. Short of a miracle, Peter was going to die.

The death of James was a terrible blow to the church, and the loss of Peter and his teaching would put the church in jeopardy. No one took the situation lightly. We are told the whole church met for an all-night prayer meeting over this humanly impossible situation. It was grim, but not hopeless.

To make a long story short, the miracle happened. An angel came to the prison and snatched Peter from his chains, from the guards and from certain death. His rescue was so dramatic, it caught everyone by surprise, including the prayer warriors.

This miracle took place because of how the church responded to the crisis. They did not just wait for God to act, nor did they panic.

Luke tells us the whole church met for an all-night prayer meeting and prayed “fervently.” The Greek word means they strained themselves to the utmost to reach their goal. They were not half-hearted or ritualistic in their prayers but wholehearted. They may not have been eloquent, but they gave themselves with total sincerity, expectancy and trust that God would come through. They moved God with their faith in Him.

There is great advantage in praying together. Prayer builds upon prayer, faith builds upon faith, until they find themselves praying for things only God can do. God wants us to pray for “impossible” things and expect Him to do them. He delights when we trust Him as our Father. He wants us to grasp the authority He has given us to deal firmly with the “Herod Agrippas” of our lives (see Matthew 16:19).

It never pays to be passive with God. God is “in control,” but in His sovereignty, He wants us to confront opponents with authority to speak and decree words of release and freedom, to destroy the works of the devil. Certainly, the devil was at work through the political and religious elites of that day. The church recognized it, taking the situation seriously, yet refusing to panic or regard themselves as victims.

We also live in crisis days, facing our own “Herod Agrippas.” Let us pray “fervently” in the spirit of the early church. The prince of darkness is grim, but we must not tremble for him. Instead, we must pray, united in wholehearted sincerity and confidence in the God of the impossible. No chains and prisons need hinder His purposes in this world and in our lives when we ask in faith.

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Sep 08 2023
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Just One Minute

What Made This Church So Great?

If the conversion and Holy Spirit filling of the Samaritans, the Ethiopian eunuch and the Roman centurion Cornelius seemed radical to Jewish believers, what happened at Antioch must have gone off the charts.

The three people mentioned above were considered Gentiles, but they had at least some connection to the Jewish traditions. The people of Antioch were total pagans in just about every way imaginable, and then some. Yet in Acts 11, Luke portrays a fellowship of Jesus followers that has become a model for us in our own day.

Antioch became the gospel gateway to the rest of the Gentile world, the missionary headquarters leading to Europe, the rest of the Roman Empire, and ultimately, to us today. In Antioch, Jesus followers first became known as “Christians,” a term that once had a meaning far beyond the established religious groups we know today. What makes the Antioch church so great?

No one knows who founded the Antioch church—probably an unknown lay person. Whoever it was, the church also had supernatural roots. “The hand of the Lord was upon them,” Luke records. What a remarkable description! They depended upon the power of God, not their own knowledge and ingenuity. They heard the voice of God and saw Him work miracles in their midst. Programs were less important than people and the pleasure of God’s company.

As a result, record numbers of people from pagan backgrounds were turning to Christ from every background. They hungered for fellowship with God and with one another. They became involved in serious and effective prayer. They heard God speak to them through the Word. They had a Great Commission vision for the world. Deep understanding and application of the Word was vital to them.

From the Antioch church Paul launched his great missionary journeys that ultimately spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. Many other lesser known but powerful missions to the world had their beginnings at Antioch because the people there believed in self-multiplication.

Personal and corporate discipleship was the rule. Continuous spiritual growth and maturity was the goal. These people in the Antioch church were not rural hillbillies but sophisticated and cosmopolitan men, women and children from the third largest urban center in the Roman Empire.

Another unprecedented feature: Jewish and Gentile believers fellowshipped with one another. In today’s culture, that would be like Brahmans eating with Dalits, or whites hanging out with Black Lives Matter folks, or hippie-types enjoying fellowship with corporate executives. Such phenomena are “God things,” impossible to reproduce apart from a move of the Holy Spirit.

How many of our own churches today resemble the church in Antioch? As Henry Blackaby has said, “We have become satisfied today to live without the manifest presence of God.”

In spite of Bible resources unavailable to any previous generation, few church members today open their Bibles or pray. Few church members demonstrate any power of the Holy Spirit. Few church members have any vision for the world. Few churches are little more than religious social clubs. It is no wonder that the world as a whole considers the church powerless, useless and irrelevant.

Pray for revival and renaissance in the church. Pray that every fellowship returns to the Antioch model. Only then will we see our world change.

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Jul 01 2023
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Just One Minute

Unexpected Jesus Follower

The miraculous conversion of Saul of Tarsus gives us hope for our own day.

Saul of Tarsus was the last person anyone expected to follow Jesus Christ. That he would later become the missionary to the Gentiles, willing to face beatings, stonings, prisons, shipwreck, and to lose his life for the sake of Christ was beyond unthinkable to anyone who knew his murderous reputation.

Already, he was implicated in the death of Jesus’ first martyr, Stephen. He possessed a fanatical hatred and fury against Jesus’ followers that rivaled or surpassed that of today’s radical terrorists. When Jesus’ followers fled Jerusalem to escape him, he chased after them, determined to destroy this affront to his beloved traditions. Who knows how many more believers died at his hands or at the hands of those who followed his orders?

In Galatians 1, we read his own description of his total devotion to the faith of his forefathers. The more people who followed Jesus Christ, the more infuriated he became. Nothing, he resolved, would or could stop him from achieving his goal of 100% eradication of Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ memory from the earth. And then…

On the road to Damascus, he met Jesus Christ face-to-face. In a split second, Saul’s life—and our own lives and destinies—were forever reversed.

In that split second, Saul of Tarsus became the man later known as Paul the Apostle, the greatest Jesus-believer the world has ever known. Everyone who reads this piece owes an unpayable debt to him and to Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, who made it all possible.

In those dark days before the light from heaven blinded Saul of Tarsus, most Jesus followers wondered how long it would take before that determined killer caught up to them. They did not count on what God was about to do to change the course of history.

In our own dark days, with so much demonic activity in India and our own nation arrayed against the advance of the gospel, is it not also hard for us to believe that anything will soon change? By the day, everything seems to get worse and worse and worse.

Many prominent Christians even say we live in a post-Christian age. Many of our children and grandchildren, raised in the church, are deserting the faith in droves for New Age, witchcraft, drugs, transgenderism and the like. We are told we will live as powerless exiles on the outskirts of Babylon until Jesus raptures us out of the mess.

But God never adopts a losing scenario. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the same God who reversed the life of Saul of Tarsus in a split second. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit—and Saul of Tarsus’ conversion—remind us that God’s work on earth never retreats but advances.

What God has shown us in the past is a foretaste of what He plans for the future. The greatest works of Christ have yet to take place in India and the world, in this country, in your lives and in the lives of those we love.

Surely, that day will come in a moment, like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on that Damascus road. Pray and praise God for that day!

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Jun 03 2023
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Just One Minute

The People You Detest

Philip’s story in Acts 8 has profound lessons for us today. Though his divine appointment with the Ethiopian eunuch is perhaps better known, his ministry in Samaria is equally profound.

Philip’s adventure in Samaria teaches us that we should never put God in a box, but do whatever He asks of us even when it appears detestable and absurd.

It takes place at a time of persecution. Stephen’s martyrdom set off the persecution directed by the fanatical Saul of Tarsus, forcing Jerusalem believers to flee for their lives. One of those exiles was the Spirit-filled Philip who felt nudged by the Holy Spirit to proclaim Christ to the Samaritans in their capital, Samaria. We first read of him in Acts 6, one of seven men selected to meet the needs of Hellenistic Jews.

This venture of Philip into Samaria is most unusual. Philip was a Jew, and the average Jew detested Samaritans as half-breeds whose religion was an odd mixture of Jewish and pagan beliefs. They hated the Samaritans so much, they took the longer and harder route around their territory just to avoid contact with them. This deep-seated and irrational hatred had persisted for centuries.

If Philip had any of these natural tendencies, he pushed them aside and obeyed the Holy Spirit. When he did, he discovered sincere spiritual hunger among these hated and rejected people. They saw signs and wonders, heard of Jesus’ love for them, and experienced multiple deliverance from demonic spirits. They welcomed Jesus as their Messiah and received the Holy Spirit. Luke tells us in Acts 8:8, “There was much rejoicing in that city.”

Not many years earlier, Jesus Himself had visited the Samaritans and changed the life of the woman who met Him at Jacob’s Well, near the town of Sychar. That transformed woman opened her people’s eyes to the true Messiah and made it possible for Jesus to do a great work among them (John 4). These people had already demonstrated their spiritual hunger.

But Jesus did not complete the ministry to the Samaritans. He paved the way for Philip to do even more. He wanted to share His own joy with others like Philip who would obey His invitation to join Him in His work.

Did He not specifically tell His disciples before His ascension, “You shall be My witnesses . . . in Samaria” (Acts 1:8)?

What an important lesson (and invitation) this is for all of us! We all have people in our lives whom we regard as “impossible” when it comes to openness to the Good News. Like the Samaritans, they could be members of a particular ethnic or cultural group. They could be family members whose rebellious or obnoxious ways have repulsed us for years, even decades.

When Jesus included Samaria in His Great Commission, He was essentially telling His disciples (and us), “You shall not only be My witnesses to the people you know, but also to the people you most detest. You and they will rejoice when you do this unlikely and impossible thing.”

Let us allow the Lord to identify any “impossible” people in our hearts so He can transform us to accept His possibilities and obey Him. In this way, we all, like Philip and the Samaritans, will also rejoice when we see God bring the impossible to pass.

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Nov 29 2022
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Just One Minute

The Early Christians Recognized this Threat

Sometimes it really strikes me—the irrationality of unbelief. The refusal to bow to fact, to rational argument, even the clear hand of God. What is most striking is how the most unbelieving can also be the most religious.

In Acts 4, Peter and John, by the power of Christ, have just healed a man lame from birth, convincing 5,000 people to follow Christ, demonstrating the power of God. But the ruling religious Sanhedrin of Jerusalem arrest both Peter and John and throw them into jail. The religious leaders could not deny the healing. They could not deny the power and boldness of Jesus’ uneducated disciples, but they want to stop them.

They knew about Jesus’ miracles. When Jesus died, they saw the massive temple veil rip from top to bottom. They could not deny Jesus’ resurrection. In Acts 5, Gamaliel, a wise elder member of the Sanhedrin even warned them that if what Peter and John did “is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.” They could have reconsidered their position, but they refused.

Unbelief shows little compassion for those freed by Christ from bondage. The religious establishment did not share the healed man’s joy. They did not empathize with his years of infirmity, his inability to care for himself, his wasted talents, his decades of destroyed dreams, the lectures from others about his imagined “sins” that brought his condition, the taunts of thoughtless children. They were lifeless and loveless.

Stone-cold unbelief can strike fear in those who speak truth, especially if the unbelievers have more power, money and political authority.

Don’t we find stone-cold unbelief in our own world today, even in our churches, whether in India or the USA? In both nations, men and women with power and authority care nothing about the God of the Bible and want to hurl Him from His throne (see Psalm 2). At times, they appear to be invulnerable, subject to no other law but their own whims and agendas that drip with unbelief and contempt for God and others they regard as lesser than they.

The early Christians recognized this threat. They saw the odds against them, but they did not flinch before the stronger foe. Peter said, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

They went to prayer, remembering the God who called them is the same God who created the heavens and the earth. They remembered Jesus’ wondrous acts. They remembered how God uses even His enemies to accomplish His purposes. They knew that the stronger power of God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead would sustain them. The scriptures tell us they prayed for boldness to preach, for signs and wonders.

God answered their prayers. He filled them anew with His Holy Spirit. In time, in 70 AD, after much patience and giving the religious authorities forty years to repent of their unbelief, He destroyed their decadent and unbelieving religious structures. In the meantime, the gospel continued to spread to “the uttermost parts of the world” as it does today.

May God help us to continue steadfast in their footsteps before our present opposition. The gospel of Jesus Christ always has the last word.

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Oct 21 2022
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Just One Minute

How to Convince Many

Often, Christian witness today is based upon apologetics—rational arguments. While apologetics has importance and may win a few people to Christ here and there, too often we are satisfied with a few. The problem with apologetics is the likelihood for someone to make counter-arguments and excuses. The arguments may go on forever.

Acts 3 demonstrates that in the power of the Holy Spirit, our witness can become an irresistible force with which no one can argue.

Acts 3 begins on an average day with Peter and John just before afternoon prayer at the temple. They confront a lame man. For years, the man was a fixture at the temple gate, eking out a living in the only way he knew—begging. Most likely, Peter and John had noted the man before, but on this day, the Holy Spirit enabled them to really see him.

They did not just stop to toss him a coin or two, or ask God to bless his day with successful begging. Instead, they invoked the authority of God to heal the man. That day, the man, lame from birth, stood and walked.

A great crowd saw the miracle and gathered around, amazed. They were not hostile. They gazed in wonder. They all had seen this man for years, carried in and carried out, unable to move on his own. Now, he was running and leaping in joy. The healing of the lame man got their attention.

Peter and John quickly told them it was not their own power, but the power of Jesus that healed the man. A few weeks earlier, some of the people who heard this had called for Jesus’ crucifixion, but they did it in ignorance, not knowing who Jesus really was. Peter told them how the prophets prepared the way for Jesus and for this day. This healing was a sign that a time of great restoration had begun that will eventually rid the world of Satan, evil and death.

The amazed people hung on to Peter’s words. In Acts 4, we read that at least 5,000 men believed the message because of what they saw that day.

A display of God’s power prepared the way. The people could not deny what happened. Arguments alone would not have won so many people.

This same power of God is available in our own day. Our evangelists in India, many from non-Christian backgrounds, experienced healing and deliverance which brought them to Christ. Now, they go into unreached areas doing the same works in the power of the Holy Spirit that changed their own lives. Acts 3 is taking place all over India today—power encounters that convince many that Jesus’ power exceeds the power of their old deities.

Acts 3 is our model as well. Let us not be cowed by the anti-supernatural element in many of our churches that tries to preserve an orderly status quo but paralyzes our influence. Let us not say we aren’t good or pious enough for this. Like Peter and John, we have been made clean by the blood of Christ.

Around the world, people are convinced more by God’s power, less by arguments. In today’s evil world, why would Jesus abandon his most powerful weapons against Satan? Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

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Sep 16 2022
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Just One Minute

A New Era in World History

Acts 2 is one of the most amazing chapters in the Bible. It marks the beginning of a new era in world history—the era of the Holy Spirit. That new era came by the will of God, but at the same time, God willed it to come through the actions of His children.

First, they waited on God. They had to wait in order to learn that God’s plans are bigger and better than their own. They had to abandon their own expectations. They waited on God because God was waiting on them to adopt heart attitudes needed for receiving the Holy Spirit.

Up until now, most of the 120 who waited in the Upper Room expected Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom. They didn’t realize that such an earthly kingdom would become subject to the same forces that brought to ruin every other kingdom—the power of the devil.

Jesus’ plan was to completely rid the world of the devil’s power, and that depended upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Once their hearts were ready, the Holy Spirit came upon them with great power that shook the place and attracted thousands from the outside.

That day, Peter preached a short and simple message that went right to the point and pricked the hearts of those who heard it. There was nothing seeker-friendly about it, yet 3,000 people responded—a 2,600% increase in their number in less than 24 hours. All because the original group had gained expectant hearts to receive the Holy Spirit.

How many churches today expect great things from God through the power of the Holy Spirit? Today, too many churches depend upon seeker-friendly methods, intellectual powers of persuasion, social media and fancy programs, but the culture and influence of the church has continued to decline. Little is said in most churches about the Holy Spirit. In fact, there is much suspicion about the Holy Spirit. This must truly delight the devil!

Yes, we must establish a strong intellectual foundation for belief. But Peter was no intellectual. His blunt message to the crowd reflected his own “blue collar” background as a fisherman. His message demonstrates what the Holy Spirit can do through anyone who abandons his agenda and waits upon God with expectancy to do great and mighty things in his/her life.

A few years later, Paul came along and demonstrated his great intellectual powers in such works as his epistles to the Romans and the Ephesians. But even Paul knew that any intellectual arguments he used depended upon Holy Spirit power to truly transform lives.

Too many people treat Acts 2 as an isolated phenomenon. But Acts 2 lies at the heart of what Jesus introduced in John 14-16 regarding the Holy Spirit. In John 17, Jesus prayed not only for His disciples in their generation but all His people including our own generation and beyond. No, Acts 2 is not an isolated phenomenon but a model for every generation.

Like the 120 who waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit, we also must put aside our own expectations and wait upon God to work through us in Holy Spirit power to preach the gospel to all peoples. In the meantime, God waits for us…

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Aug 04 2022
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God’s New Thing

In our troubled days, it is good for us to remember and practice what Jesus’ disciples learned and did as they faced their own days of uncertainty when Jesus left them and ascended into heaven.

The memory of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was fresh. Yes, Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. But now, He did something totally unexpected. He was not about to restore the kingdom of Israel as they hoped. Instead, Jesus was about to leave them.

This caught them unawares. Now, the future became a question mark to them. Their expectations became irrelevant. Instead, Jesus promised them the coming of the Holy Spirit about whom they knew nothing. In effect, Jesus told them, “You are at the beginning of a New Thing.” But they still didn’t understand the implications of that “New Thing.”

In His departing conversation with His disciples, He gives them at least five instructions as they wait for this “New Thing.” His instructions carry down to us as we wait for God’s “New Thing” in our own time of uncertainty and change:

  • Give up your own expectations.
  • Trust Christ Himself alone—He has the bigger picture.
  • Don’t try to figure out the future. Live in the present and leave the future to God.
  • Trust the power of the Holy Spirit to take you to the promised “New Thing” about to happen.
  • Continue in prayer and supplication before God, and expect God to answer with great and mighty things.

This was a huge and painful paradigm shift for the disciples, but they still trusted Jesus to do what He promised.

Acts 1 tells us that 120 followers of Jesus gathered together and prayed “steadfastly,” that is, without distraction. They prayed “continually,” that is, with perseverance. They prayed “with one accord,” that is, with united focus on Jesus’ instructions. They prayed “with the women,” that is, with those they normally didn’t pray with but who shared the same Lord and destiny.

The Greek word for “to pray” (see also 1 Timothy 2:1) indicates they prayed prayers from the heart directly to God, not as a rote religious ritual. They did not just voice wishes but direct and specific requests of God. They kept a spirit of thanksgiving, remembering Jesus’ miracles, His resurrection, and everything else He did in love for multitudes of people. They knew they were not abandoned, though they still didn’t understand the profound changes about to happen.

They did not focus upon their weaknesses and failures. Their small number did not trouble them, nor the formidable power of the Romans or the impressive religious establishment. The size of the unbelieving community did not sway them, nor did their lack of social or religious influence.

They kept focused on the promise—the good future to which Jesus pointed them and the power He had already displayed in their own lives and those of others.

In our troubled days, let us remember that Jesus has not changed. The promise of the Holy Spirit He gave to His followers comes down to us today. Let us continue to follow the instructions Jesus gave His uncertain followers that we might live out the “New Thing” God has for us in our own day and for a world that still does not know Him.

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Jul 10 2022
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What To Do When You Fail

Do you ever feel you have failed your Lord? Have you felt you have denied Him by your words, deeds, inactions—even your cowardice? Let Jesus’ redemption of Peter in John 21 encourage you.

Like Peter, we set high standards for ourselves in our discipleship. We have the best of intentions. We will succeed where others have failed. Yet not only do we fail, but our failure is miserable, humiliating, wretched.

Look at Peter, boasting of his loyalty and bravery. But when the test came, he crumbled. He denied Jesus Christ three times, with curses, cowering even before an unnamed, powerless slave-girl.

Now, even after he witnessed the resurrected Christ, he felt like a failure, unworthy of his calling as a disciple of the Lord of Glory. In consternation and confusion, he went off to fish, joined by several of his fellow failed disciples. They caught nothing. Another failure.

Enter Jesus, who first reminds Peter of His original calling by giving Peter another miraculous catch of fish (see Luke 5). Then comes a remarkable confrontation. “Do you love [agape] me?” Twice, Jesus asks Peter, using the word for perfect love. Peter can only say, “I love [phileo] you,” a lesser form of love. Can any of us honestly do any better than Peter? Then Jesus comes down on Peter’s level and asks a third time, “Do you love [phileo] me?”

Remarkably, Jesus accepts Peter’s imperfect love. It is not perfect, but real. Peter reveals himself as a “flickering flame.” His love flickers, but it still burns, and Jesus is a master at fanning flickering flames (Matthew 12:20).

Jesus responds to Peter in three ways. His responses in the Greek reveal that His call on Peter’s life has not changed.

“Tend my lambs” suggests his future care of immature and vulnerable people in need of special attention. “Tend my sheep” indicates Peter’s role as an overseer, a shepherd. The third response should read, “Pasture the sheep,” indicating Peter’s role in preaching and teaching from the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Peter’s failures have broken him and given him humility, the very quality he needs (and we need) to perform his (and our) calling. We know from history that Jesus fanned Peter’s “flickering flame” into a refiner’s fire through the coming of the Holy Spirit. Days later, filled with the Holy Spirit, he stood before thousands, boldly preached his first sermon, and saw 3,000 people follow Christ.

Later, he stood before the same religious authorities who crucified Jesus, now threatening him with prison or worse if he continued to preach Jesus. Peter fearlessly responded, “It is better to obey God rather than man.” Jesus indicated that Peter would give his life for Him with a rare courage.

It is good for us to confess and grieve the times we deny Christ by our words, deeds and inactions, but it is better for us to remember how He has also filled us with the same Holy Spirit that filled Peter. He still says to us, as He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”

In our families, communities, workplaces, schools, creative activities, governments, and around the world, we have opportunities to do just that. Jesus has even told us as He told Peter, “Greater works than I have done, you will do.”

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