Yielding The Truth

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focused discussion will be on yielding to the truth. Peter wanted to be where Jesus was. I tell this story in my little book on God's will. He wanted to be where Jesus was, always. I mean, I'm sure Jesus walked down the road and stopped, and Peter ran into the back of him. Peter trailed him everywhere. Lord went up on a mountain, Peter went up on a mountain, Lord said, Will you go away? He says, Where am I going to go? Peter was always around. And so, you know, I know why he was around. Because when he was near Jesus, three things stand out in the Bible. He did the miraculous, said the miraculous, and had miraculous courage. The first thing, you know, he the first time you see Peter, he's in a boat on the sea, and boy, it's nervous time, right? The storm, and they're all alone, and they're shaky, and they're out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. All of a sudden they look off in the distance, and here comes Jesus walking on the water, and then Peter thinks to himself, I'm here. He's there, but that's no good. I've got to close the gap. See? And he's gonna go be with Jesus. Now he's been a fisherman all his life, lived on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, never walked on it yet. Every time he ever stepped into it, he went right to the bottom. He knows that. It's never been any different, and yet he jumps out of the boat and takes off across the water. He gets out a little ways and says, Ha ha ha, you know. Well, you see, he was unconscious of what he was doing. Because his compulsion to be with Jesus absolutely overrode everything. He just was going to be where Jesus was. And of course he met Jesus, and for a while he started to sink, and the Lord reached down, lifted him up, and they walked back to the boat. You know, I can just imagine him walking along with Jesus back to the boat feeling pretty hot. Hmm, you know? Look at us fellas, you know, see? And I always laugh because one writer wrote it had a sandbar that they were walking on a sandbar. But he's the same writer who said that there wasn't a great fish that swallowed Jonah either. That was just the name of the dinghy tied on the back of the ship. Of course my question was, whoever heard of a dinghy that vomited? But anyway, that's an aside. So anyway, Peter and Jesus are walking to the boat, and you know what? You have to admit that when Peter was near Jesus, he could do the miraculous. I mean he couldn't walk on water, but he could when he was near Jesus, right? The next time we see him in our little analogy, he's gathered with the disciples, and Jesus said, Who do men say that I am? Matthew 16. And they said, Oh, some say you're Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he says, Well, who do you say that I am? And Peter goes, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And I'm sure he thought to himself, Where did that come from? You see, Peter's mouth was available. A little while later in that chapter, Satan used it, remember? And Jesus had to say, Get thee behind me, Satan. His mouth was available. And then God used it. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. What a shock. And Jesus looked at him and said, Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, Peter. My father in heaven did. My father just used your mouth for a moment there. Well, no wonder he wanted to be where Jesus was. He could do the miraculous and say the miraculous. The third thing, he could have miraculous courage. In the garden, you know, all the soldiers came in to catch Jesus, capture him, take him to trial, and Jesus said, Whom seek ye? And the whole Roman army fell over, fell over like dominoes, flat on the ground. And Peter thought to himself, This is gonna be easy, I mean, one, and they all fell over already. And so he's standing next to Jesus, and he's getting more and more irritated, and pretty soon he decides he's gonna just lash out. So he takes his sword and he starts with the first guy in line. He was gonna go through the whole pile. There were maybe five hundred of them from Fort Antonius. He just whacks off Malchus's ear, and he was going for his head, but Malchus ducked. No question in my mind about it. He wasn't just going, got your ear, you know. That wasn't the idea. He was going for the whole deal. And he started with the first guy in line, was going to work his way through the whole troop. We say, Where did you get the courage, man? Where'd you get the courage? Well he knew that all he had to do was just look at Jesus. And Jesus would go like that again, and they'd all fall over. So he didn't have anything to worry about, see. See, he had the ability to do the miraculous, say the miraculous, have miraculous courage when he was near Jesus. No wonder that's where he wanted to be. No wonder when Jesus said, Will you go away? He said, Where would I ever go, Lord? And yet you know what happens the next time we see him? He's separated from Jesus. Jesus is inside being tried. He's outside washing his hands, or warming his hands rather. And the Bible says three times he did what? He denied him. Isn't that awful? You know, all it took for Peter was to get separated from Jesus and he was a failure. Great principle in that, isn't there? You say, he was a coward when Jesus was a hundred feet away or so. Yeah. The next thing that happened, Jesus went to heaven. You say, Oh, that's the end of Peter. He's a coward at a hundred feet. What's he gonna do now? The Lord's clear back in heaven, we might as well bury the guy. No. You know what he does? He stands up on the day of Pentecost and he says, Ye men of Judea, and all ye at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words. He goes on to preach about Jesus, whom you crucified, is the Lord and Christ. And he preaches a fantastic masterpiece, and God is using his mouth again, and it's going with divine inspiration. And he gets all done, and they were pricked in their hearts, and they cried out, What are we going to do? And he said, Repent and be baptized, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. And three thousand of them were. You know what you see him doing? Saying the miraculous again. He's opening his mouth and God's talking. The next time you see him, he and John are going over to the temple to worship, and there's a guy laying there, he's been a beggar, and he looks at him and he says, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And the guy jumps up and jumps around and dances and goes right on through the temple doing all that. He not only could say the miraculous, he could do the miraculous. And so they didn't like what he was doing, and they dragged him in before the Sanhedrin, and they said, Stop preaching, and he said to them, You tell me whether I ought to obey you or God. And they let him go, and he went right out and started a prayer meeting, and they prayed that God would give them more boldness. And they went out and preached all the more. You say what's the connection? Before you ever stood up on Pentecost, the Bible says in Acts 2.4, they were all filled with what? The Holy Spirit. Now listen, here's the conclusion. Being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as living as if you're standing next to whom? Jesus Christ. Being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as letting the presence of Christ dominate your life. It's not a mystical thing, people. It's filling myself with the Word of God, so that the truth of Christ dominates my thinking, and then the Spirit of God, as I yield to the truth of Christ in me, will lead me to do and say and be what God wants me to be. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of yielding to the truth. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way.