Devotionals
"Peter said to Him, 'Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake.'” ~ John 13:37
"For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers." ~ Galatians 1:13-14
To be sure there are things in us not pleasing to God, spiritual things, He wants those things rooted out of our lives. Before Christ we had or have things from a person who was at one time spiritually dead in trespasses and sins.
At the same time the God of the spiritual is also God of the natural. We were naturally born into this world because of this. We are here because He wanted us physically, naturally here. By that same route we have natural characteristics that appealed to Him. I believe that.
Two cases in point: Peter and Paul.
While misguided and impulsive Peter showed a certain kind of natural drive that motivated him to say he would follow Jesus anywhere, even to death. He definitely displayed Devotion. The problem was not the devotion but the motivation. He trusted he had what it took to remain so devoted. His self-focus disappointed him.
However the Lord sought to change the focus by allowing failure to show Peter he could not trust himself while showing him he could count on his Lord. So the focus changed and we have two letters revealing the man with the same devotion but a different trust, a different Lord.
Paul, on the other hand, was a Fighter. As a lost though religious man he fought for empty tradition, things his culture practiced that had little to do with God's Word. Though so religious it was man-centered instead of centering on God. Like Peter the focus was all wrong. Jesus had to knock him off his horse, literally, and show him his New Focus. The Fighter remained, fighting for Christ and we see that fight in two-thirds of the New Testament.
I believe God naturally placed the Devotion in Peter and the Fighter in Paul, having pre-destined them for Christ. All that needed to happen was for the revelation of His Son to occur.
God loved Peter and Paul, and He also liked them, for what they had from Him from their first birth. The same is true for the rest of us. For me, I believe it is my Intensity. I had it in my sin and now in my worship. Like Peter's Devotion and Paul's Fighter, my Intensity is a keeper.
What's your keeper? Is it focused/dependent on Jesus?
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