Thursday, March 2, 2017

Fulfilling Our Primary Directive By Getting Real And Getting Right





He said to him the third time, "…do you love Me?" —John 21:17



{CHAMBERS} ““Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, ‘Do you love Me?’ ” Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. […] The Lord’s questions always reveal the true me to myself.”



{ELGIN}  Do you struggle with your devotion to the Lord?  Often times when people ask us questions, we don’t answer them honestly, or at least completely.  And for good reason.  We want to maintain appearances.  We don’t want people to know what wretches we really are.  Where we might have people fooled, there is nothing that can be hidden from God.  When Samuel went to Jesse’s to anoint the new king, the Lord told Samuel  (1 Samuel 16:7) “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  That is why Peter said “Lord, You know all things.”  As Christians, our primary concern should not be on what people think about us, but what the Lord knows about us.  When asked what the greatest commandment was Jesus answered (Matthew 22:37-38) “Love God with all your heart.”  Our primary directive.  When Peter said he did love the Lord then Jesus said, do the next thing, feed My sheep. In other words, love others … the secondary directive (Matthew 22:39).

Jesus knows our every weakness.  He knows the answer before He asks it.  Like Peter, what He wants us to do is to get real, and get right.  Then when we have done that, to let our light shine.

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