Follow Me - John 21:1-4

John 21:1-4


After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way He showed Himself: Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We are going with you also." They went out and 1immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (NKJV)

Sometimes after the greatest things that God does in our lives, we return to the familiar mundaneness.

Now I have nothing against the mundane. I think that some of the greatest acts of God have been done by people we would consider mundane. But we also need to guard against returning to that which is familiar so that we don’t miss that which is miraculous.

After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room.

John 20:19-20: "Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord." (NKVJ).

Just imagine! This great miracle! The Lord Jesus back from the dead. Now, Jesus had raised several from the dead during His ministry, but here, the Lord Himself raised from the dead. And He appeared to His disciples not only this time but again, eight days later (v. 28). He, who had been crucified, was alive, was appearing to people!

So what did the disciples decide to do? Did they go out and tell everyone the great news? After all, there were many who loved the Lord and would rejoice at His resurrection. No. They left Jerusalem and went to the Sea of Tiberius to fish. They returned to those activities that were familiar, even mundane, in their lives. Great emotional trauma had occurred in the past two weeks and, for stability I believe, they looked to return to that which they knew, to that which they could depend not to change. They returned to fishing.

I can’t begin to tell you what I would have done in their place. I know that in times of great emotional upheaval, I have longed to find some centering activity that would simply allow me to breath, to put one foot in front of another. But as I look back, I have to wonder if I might have missed something great that God wanted to do in my life. Certainly the Lord wanted to do something great in the lives of the apostles. He searched them out, even to the Sea of Tiberius, to make sure that they didn’t remain with the mundane, but instead searched out the miraculous that God wanted to do in them. They left Jerusalem, the place where the Church would be born on Pentecost, to go back to what they knew, to what was familiar. The Lord had other plans. He went to Tiberius and said to Simon Peter, "Follow Me," (21:19).

Now Simon had been following Jesus for three years, so there was obviously some kind of emotional break that had occurred. Simon must have believed that his tutelage as a disciple was at an end. But the Lord wasn’t finished. "Simon, follow Me." And in following, the disciples returned to Jerusalem to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Has something happened in your life? In mine? Have we retreated to that which is familiar because the emotional pain is so much to bear? And yet, the Lord Jesus is pursuing us, calling after us, "Follow Me." His path may take us right back to the place of our pain, but now for a different reason. This may be the start of a miracle that we could never begin to imagine. Any time that the Lord says, "Follow Me," His purposes are beyond the scope of what this world can offer. And He often births those miracles out of great loss and great distress. Today, if we are facing the darkness, we need to trust that He is standing on the other side, holding out His hand, saying, "Daughter. Son. Follow Me." Do we trust Him enough to follow?

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Repentance - 2 Peter 3:9

2 Peter 3:9



The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (NIV)

For Christians, Easter is about salvation. The Lord Jesus was crucified and died, was buried, and then rose on the first day of the week. In His death, our sins were buried. In His resurrection, we can be born to new life. For many it’s a familiar story. But I think it’s important at Easter not to let the familiarity of the Easter story rob us of the amazement of what salvation actually means, of what the Lord actually did at the cross. Because what He gave us through His death and resurrection is nothing short of a miracle.

When Father God created the world, as the Creator, He had the complete and absolute authority in making the decisions He made. This wasn’t the first time He had created anything, for He had, at some event previously, created the myriad of angels. And likely there are other creative acts not yet revealed to us that happened. It is God’s nature to create and because it’s who He is, it’s also what He does. However, our concern is with the creation of this universe for within it the most amazing thing happened. God created people in His image with the free will to choose whether or not to live within His rules. Think about that. His playground; His rules! And yet, He created us with the freedom to choose to obey or choose not to obey. And within that freedom, He also so loved us that rather than destroy His disobedient creations, He reached out His hand and instituted a plan that would save us from ourselves and from our sin. He created the plan of redemption..

"Those who receive God’s abundance provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. . . . [His] one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people." (Romans 5:17b, 18b NIV)

It is through this "righteous act"-the Lord’s death and resurrection-that we are given the privilege and power to repent. I think repentance is amazing. Repentance gives us three things: Forgiveness, freedom, and forever.


Forgiveness

1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness." (NIV). All unrighteousness. Not just the sin we know, but even the sin we aren’t aware of. King David wrote in Psalm 19:

"But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults" (v. 12 NIV).

When we confess the sins we are aware of, God’s grace forgives us of even the sins we don’t know we’ve committed. There is a complete cleansing. Repentance is that process which leads us to this place of confession. The apostle Paul wrote:

"You became sorrowful as God intended. . . . Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret." (2 Corinthians 10:9b, 10a NIV).

Repentance leads us to God’s forgiveness and God’s forgiveness is complete. When we repent, the Lord graciously forgives because of the cross. Our debt has been paid, and we appropriate that payment through repentance.


Freedom

The repentance that we can now exercise not only provides forgiveness for our sins, but it actually frees us from sin’s bondage. The apostle Paul taught on this idea of slavery to sin and slavery to righteousness in Romans 6:

We used to be slaves to sin (v. 17). When we were slaves to sin, we were separate from the control of righteousness.
Through salvation, we are now slaves to righteousness (v. 18).
Prior to salvation, we didn’t have a choice; we had to obey sin (v. 20)
Now, we have a choice, whether to sin or to live righteously (v. 19).

Those who aren’t saved are slaves to sin. A slave has no choice, but do what his master commands. Those who aren’t saved can’t live in obedience to God’s commands, but must sin because they are powerless to do otherwise. Those who are saved have the freedom to choose whether to sin or to live righteously. Because of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can now live apart from sin. We are free of the grasp of sin and its consequences. "For sin shall no longer be your master." (v. 14). Paul writes:

"Offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness" (v. 19b).

The great preacher, John Wesley, believed it was possible for the Christian to live a sinless life. Though he never claimed to have achieved that himself, his premise was that through understanding Paul’s writing in Romans, a Christian could embrace this freedom from sin and live a righteous life leading to holiness. Paul certainly believed that sin was always a choice and that the believer had to power to make the choice for righteousness.

I think getting a sense of that freedom, of understanding that we are no longer slaves to our flesh nature which will always sin, is the first step in choosing a life where we live in obedience to God rather than a life of sin. Paul was adamant that the Christian choose not to sin: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!" (v. 15). Through the Lord’s death and resurrection, we have been given the freedom not to sin. Who would want to go back to a life of sin when there is another choice? Repentance is the step toward that kind of freedom, not only being sorry for our sin, but turning around and going a different direction. It’s a chance to redo what we should have done the first time.


Forever

Repentance is also the first step to eternal life. The apostle John writes:

"God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." (1 John 5:11b-12 NIV).

Earlier in the same chapter, John wrote: "This is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world." (v. 3-4a NIV). The progression of life for a Christian is repentance, then obedience, then eternity. Not that we can earn eternal life by anything that we do, but we demonstrate to ourselves and to God that we have accepted His gift of salvation through our repentance. Our repentance is the natural result of our salvation. If we truly love God, we will want to repent of our sins. "My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more" ("It Is Well with My Soul," Horatio G. Spafford). This sense of "bearing" it isn’t just about the guilt and shame. It’s also about continuing in that same sin. Repentance is the idea that we turn away from the sin and don’t return to it again.

Sinlessness is rehearsal for eternity. There won’t be sin in heaven. No more arrogance, presumption, anger, self-centeredness, or narcissism. In heaven, everything will be about Jesus and we will be rejoicing just to be in His presence.

Repentance is our guarantee of eternity in heaven. Repentance allows us to walk away from our sin without penalty because that debt has been paid by our Lord. Repentance allows us to step aside from what we’ve done and look forward to what’s been promised to us. Repentance is our guarantee of a better life after this one, our promise of "forever."

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.