Deacon's Journal
When Jesus called Simon He immediately changed His name. This change pointed to the life that Peter would live; a life of strong spiritual leadership. As Peter built his life on the Lord he became the rock. Please note that Peter’s name wasn’t changed at the end of His life after He had proven himself through ministry. Peter’s name was changed at the beginning of his ministry because Christ was about to prove Himself faithful.
In Jesus’ faithfulness and power, we become His agents just like the disciples did – proclaiming repentance, becoming vehicles for the miraculous, demonstrating compassion, sacrifice, and unity.
Through the power of Jesus’ presence in our lives we will eat from the true bread of life; we will know peace and be satisfied in Him; we will proclaim the Gospel.
The Pharisees sought to attain holiness from outward behavior that works its way inward. Jesus wants to enter the innermost chambers of our hearts, throw out the sin He finds, and transform us from the inside out.
In the power of Jesus we can move away from hardness toward child-like softness, away from human pride to godly humility, away from focusing on ourselves to becoming change agents in the world.
How can we approach His holiness and embrace Him when we’ve run the wrong way so many times? Be encouraged – the disciples didn’t embrace Jesus rightly at every encounter and neither will you.
Our hope is that when Christ died the curtain of the temple tore in two so that now we can approach Him with confidence despite our constant failures. At every Jesus-encounter that we fail to experience, His loving, holy presence beckons us back into the inner chambers of relationship to be forgiven and restored.
So today, when His Word begs to change us, let’s run away from pride and fear and confidently sprint into the innermost sanctuary of His heart praying with the utmost humility for Him to stay and change us to be more like Him.
Sallie Rathbone
Deacon
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