Author: erich

Tonight, Zoe asked me a very simple, yet poignant question.

During our family devotions tonight, we were discussing how the Peter on the day of Pentecost was wholly unlike the Peter on the night Jesus was betrayed.  Completely unrecognizable.  On the night Jesus was betrayed, Peter denied three times knowing who Jesus was.  Yet in Acts 2, Peter gives a sermon where he sounds as if he has been preaching on the subject for years on end.  How can we but chalk it up to the Holy Spirit?

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV)

Is this not the power of the Holy Spirit being poured out in Peter?  Only the Holy Spirit could have brought Peter from his state of fear and denial and turned him into a theological titan.  Using this example, I applied this to our lives as we bear witness for Christ, something I’ve long struggled with.

“You know, sometimes we are afraid to talk about Jesus with other people.”

Zoe: “Why is that?”

“You know, that’s a very good question.”

This coming on the heels of me recently listening to a Marc Davis sermon entitled “Discipleship and Real People”, where he calls having faith like a child Christianity 101, but also as doctoral studies in Christian theology — the simplest things can also be the hardest.