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Dec 06 2024
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Just One Minute

The Heart of a True Shepherd

Do you want to know what kind of person the apostle Paul would advise you to have as the pastor of your church? If you read Acts 20, you will get a good idea from his parting words to the elders of the church at Ephesus.

The elders were responsible for leadership and oversight of the church. They taught, preached, guarded against false teachers, encouraged believers, prayed for and visited the sick, decided doctrinal matters and trained new believers.

Paul must have done a good job with them. The church of Ephesus became one of the strongest of the early churches. This was a mighty feat, given that Ephesus had lived for more than 1,000 years under the worship of the goddess, Artemis. How did Paul do it? We are most blessed that Paul shares with us the ingredients of his successful recipe. I call them the “ten commandments” for making a good elder/pastor:

  • Paul taught the Ephesians with “all humility and tears.” What powerful words! Paul exhibited a strong empathy with the Ephesian people that he shepherded, whatever their background. They knew he was on their side and wanted only their best.
  • He boldly taught the truth. He left out nothing they should know. He held nothing back, even if it might make them uncomfortable or cost him popularity.
  • He preached the same gospel to all. It didn’t matter what their background was. That gospel required repentance before God and faith in Jesus Christ.
  • He willfully placed his life in the hands of God, knowing some in the community would become offended at the truth and speak evil against him.
  • He knew he had a definite call of God to preach. He had a single-minded purpose and desire to complete the mission God had given him. He would not be swayed by lesser things.
  • He kept a clear conscience, knowing that he preached all that God commissioned him to preach. He preached the whole counsel of God, never mincing his words, so that he comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.
  • He took care to shepherd his people as Jesus would shepherd them, willing to give up his life on their behalf if necessary.
  • He remained alert for those who entered the flock and led others astray by charisma, smooth talk filled with false and perverse, but attractive-sounding, things.
  • He depended daily upon God to help him do what he could not do in himself alone. He trusted God to build up his own faith as he built up the faith of his people.
  • He especially bent over backward to help those who were weak, giving sacrificially of himself.

What did Paul teach the Ephesians? The epistle to the Ephesians gives us a good idea. Martyn-Lloyd Jones preached at least 232 sermons from this epistle, portraying Paul’s high view of the gospel, a profound portrait of what God intends. Is this the gospel coming to you from the pulpit in your church? Is this the same gospel that guides your life, family and community?

This gospel preached by Paul reflects the life of a man who has met God, witnessed His glory and is completely sold out to Him. May all our pulpits become filled with like-minded pastor/teachers who deliver the message of God, true to the Word and in great power and truth.

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Aug 17 2024
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Just One Minute

Bridging Cultures: Paul’s Approach

Paul’s visit to Mars Hill in Acts 17 has some important lessons for us today as we confront a culture that has become almost as pagan as the Athenian culture Paul confronted.

In many ways, the Athenians of Paul’s day resembled our own. Yet Paul made an impact upon these heathens, and some of them had their eyes opened. This should encourage us in our own day.

See if you recognize some of these Athenian traits in our own day: rationalism, materialism, relativism, promiscuity (even in religion), rampant sexual perversion, i.e., homosexuality and pedophilia, human trafficking (in this case, slavery), worship of beautiful people, belief that education is the solution to society’s problems, a two-tiered justice system, just to name a few.

Like many people in our own day, these jaded people had no knowledge or trust in inspired scriptures. Quoting from the Old Testament would have meant nothing to these elites steeped in Epicurean and Stoic philosophy, and worship of many gods and goddesses.

Indeed, when Paul first began to speak to them of Jesus, most of them initially brushed him off as an “idle babbler” and a teacher of “strange deities.”

Yet Paul never assumed the privileged Athenian know-it-alls were too far gone for redemption. These pagans also possessed the image of God. They had eternity in their hearts, and these facts inadvertently revealed themselves in the pagan philosophies of the day. So he approached them through the very words of their own philosophers who possessed some truth–though not all of it. For example…

Sometimes we quote Paul, who said to them of the Creator God, “In Him we live and move and have our being,” not knowing that we are actually quoting a pagan Cretan philosopher named Epimenides (c.a. 600 BC). Through such links with their own thinkers, Paul led them to consider Jesus Christ. We are told that his approach struck a receptive chord. Some of them stopped laughing, listened to what Paul was trying to tell them—and they believed!

Paul demonstrated that before we can effectively communicate the gospel to anyone, we must first understand where they are coming from. Only then can we link them to Jesus. We must love them even as God loves them, knowing that Christ died for them as He died for us. The Good News resonates with people of every background—if we take the time to know them and present the truth in a manner they best understand.

Some teachers at IGO training centers and many graduates come out of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Buddhist backgrounds—religions regarded by many westerners as “unreachable.” But today, they communicate Jesus Christ to their own people. In many ways, evangelists and church planters from non-Christian backgrounds are the best gospel communicators of all.

Dr. Mahendra Singhal, a former Hindu who knows Hindus and leads an outreach to Hindus, has said, “Hindus believe in going to the extremes in showing love to someone… I have discovered in my witnessing to Hindus that they are generally moved by the depiction of Jesus on the cross to validate His love for us.”

Paul’s approach still works. May his approach become our own as we stand for Christ where we live, work and learn!

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Mar 01 2024
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Resolving Differences: Acts 15’s Guidance

Acts 15 demonstrates what we must do when disagreements and differences arise in the body of Christ. Disagreements will arise. We are all imperfect followers of Christ with limited and slanted views due to heredity and environment, subject to influence by a common enemy, the devil. That devil seeks to sow discord and division among us. He wants us to major in minors, to blind our eyes to the main focus, to foil God’s redemptive purpose.

In Acts 15, growing numbers of Gentiles were becoming Christ-followers. For a while, the Christ-followers were mostly Jews. Should these former pagans be compelled to obey the Jewish law? Those believers who were once Pharisees thought they should. Others said, “Not so fast!” The apostles called a special council at Jerusalem to discuss the growing controversy where Paul and Barnabas related the Spirit-filled signs and wonders that came upon the Gentiles.

At last, Peter concluded, “We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they [the Gentiles] also are” (Acts 15:11). On this point, everyone could agree, and that settled the matter. The grace of God through Jesus and the cross was the common foundation for cooperation between Jewish believers and Gentile believers, not the Jewish law.

Later in Acts 15, a second source of division arose involving a personal dispute between Barnabas and Paul over a relative of Barnabas, a younger man named John Mark. This young man joined with Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary journey but deserted them in Pamphylia after they experienced rough going in Cyprus.

Later, when Paul and Barnabas went back to visit some of these places, Barnabas suggested that John Mark join them, but Paul objected. When they could not agree, they went their separate ways. Barnabas is never mentioned again in Acts.

But this did not end their basic respect for one another. In 1 Corinthians 9:6. Paul praises Barnabas, and in Galatians 2:11-13, Paul describes another event in Antioch that includes Barnabas. Whatever their disagreement over John Mark, they did not let it replace their common goal: to preach and demonstrate the love, grace and power of God through Jesus Christ.

Human passions initially got in the way, and they did gospel work separately for a time, but they did not allow their differences drive them apart. In time, Paul came to see the value of John Mark to the common purpose. Barnabas and Paul refused to speak ill of the other.

They worked within their human limitations as fallible humans, but they never forgot their common purpose: the grace of God through Jesus Christ. The Great Commission continued to advance.

Let these two examples from the past teach us all today. More often than not, our churches and fellowships are motley collections of people from vastly different backgrounds and perspectives who should come together because of a common fellowship in Jesus Christ.

Too often, churches, groups, families and friendships split over personal and extra-biblical matters that have nothing to do with God’s priorities. In doing so, we mock and belittle Christ and His sacrifice.

Let the love and grace of God through Jesus Christ always remain as the cornerstone of all we say and do so that we become salt and light in this world.

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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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Aug 10 2023
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Breaking Tradition

Jesus tells us to pray “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.” John, His disciple, tells us, “The Son of God [Jesus] appeared…to destroy the works of the devil”
(1 John 3:8).

In other words, we as Jesus’ followers have marching orders. We are engaged in a spiritual war to regain territory from an illegal occupier, Satan, who stole it from us through deceit. Through the cross, he has no further authority to keep it. The mission involves both angelic and human forces obedient to Jesus, our Commander-in-Chief.

Military operations require an overall plan and objective that unfolds in different phases. The operation depends upon troop flexibility to shift direction and action at a moment’s notice.

Acts 10 exemplifies one of those momentous shifts.

Phase one began with the Abrahamic Covenant. Most Jews came to see this as a covenant exclusive to themselves. Everyone else was regarded as “gentile,” or pagan, though God told Abraham, “Through you all the nations will be blessed.” For most Jews, this part was forgotten.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples they, the Jewish believers, would take the gospel to the “uttermost parts of the earth,” that is, to the outside Gentile world.

Peter, Jesus’ disciple and apostle of the early church, was a traditional and patriotic Jew. But Jesus wanted him to preach the gospel, not only to a man and his household regarded as outside the Covenant, but who came from among hated Roman conquerors. This Roman officer, Cornelius, had learned to worship the true God, but because he was “gentile,” his faith was regarded as inferior. For Peter to willingly obey this order required a massive paradigm shift.

God required him to abandon 2,000 years of traditional thinking at a moment’s notice. In Acts 10, Peter’s housetop vision (repeated three times) prepared him for his mission, with God commanding him to kill and eat animals regarded as unclean by Jewish law. In the vision, Peter at first refuses this order, saying, “By no means, Lord!”

In the end, Peter gets the message. He obeys God and preaches the gospel to Cornelius and his household. They all commit their lives to Christ and experience the filling of the Holy Spirit, identical to what happened to the blood children of Abraham at Pentecost.

This event is so momentous to Peter and to the Jewish believers that they marvel over it in the next chapter. They are advancing in their faith, but they are still learning about God’s overall plan to destroy the works of the devil and to bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. They didn’t have the whole picture, and neither do we. We receive it just one order at a time.

Are we ready to abandon at a moment’s notice beloved and familiar traditions to destroy Satan’s work and reassert Christ’s authority? Are we willing to accept people as fellow believers whose looks and ways differ from our cherished expectations?

As we learn in Acts 10, God still brings blessings to and through the very people we least expect and whom we even despise. God’s love and mercy is greater than our own. His sovereignty is more sovereign than we know. His grace is more gracious, His love more loving.

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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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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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Aug 04 2022
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Just One Minute

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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Just One Minute

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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