“Beat you! Beat you!” Ezra’s high pitched squeals echoed the others across the backyard. He runs with his whole body, belly out, arms back, vibrato in his voice keeping rhythm with his bounding steps. The slight grade of our backyard pushes him faster until I’m afraid he may face plant. Still he runs. Amelia challenged Thomas to a race by simply dashing after one of the plastic oversized baseballs he’d been hitting, chanting, “I’m gonna get it first.” Thomas flew in pursuit, “I’m gonna beat you.” Ezra picked up his favorite cousin’s charge. “Beat you. Beat you.” Only Timothy was unmoved, content with swinging in lieu of his afternoon nap. The others fight resting with fierce activity, spurred on by competition, even at bedtime. That’s just kids being kids.
We may be tempted to elevate the apostles to superhuman status because they walked with Jesus. They do deserve our utmost respect for through them we received the gospel but they were exactly as human as you and me. They were boys and men struggling to keep up and playfully or not so playfully competing. In spite of themselves, Jesus used them to change the world. He took their real, ordinary, everyday lives surrendered to Him, infused them with His Spirit and used them to continue building His eternal kingdom, the Kingdom of God.
“For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’
There is salvation in no one else!
God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.””
Acts of the Apostles 4:11-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/act.4.11-12.NLT
Seeing the first disciples, the first to answer Jesus’s call to follow Him, as flesh and blood individuals helps me to understand how God, in His Holiness, could use me. As you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John captured glimpses of Jesus, God incarnate, for us to know. In fact, John plainly stated that if everything that Jesus said and did during His brief ministry were to be written down, the world could not contain the books that would be written. God assured us elsewhere in Scripture that what is revealed in Holy Writ is sufficient for salvation to all who will believe. (II Timothy 3:15) Enjoy with me just a few examples of boys being boys, of human nature exerting itself and being set right by its only true Master, and dare to think of yourself as the one Jesus loved.
“Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb.
They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in.
Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside.
He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings.
Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.”
John 20:3-9 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.20.3-6.NLT
John interrupted his resurrection narrative to brag that he had outrun Peter but then admitted losing his nerve and waiting for Peter to enter. James and John called dibs on places of honor in the coming Kingdom and the others called not fair while probably secretly wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him.
“Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.”
“What is your request?” he asked.
They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”
When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant.
So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world Lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.
But among you it will be different.
Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.””
Mark 10:35-37, 41-45 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mrk.10.35-45.NLT
It may be amusing to see these giants of the faith in light of their very real humanity but let’s not stop there. What can we learn from their failures that inform our own? How do we see Jesus responding? How can we receive both his forgiveness and His chastening? Knowing I will have occasion to forgive even as I am forgiven, how can I prepare to respond in kind? Jesus informed them and us that in this world we will have daily struggles. He also assures us with this promise. “Take heart for I have overcome the world.”
“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.
We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.”
2 Peter 1:3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2pe.1.3.NLT
The disciples floundered after Jesus’s resurrection. Lacking his continual physical presence, they were unsure of what to do with themselves.
“Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.”
“We’ll come, too,” they all said.
So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.
At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was.
He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”
“No,” they replied.
Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!”
So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it.
Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!”
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (for he had stripped for work), jumped into the water, and headed to shore.
The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore.
When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them—fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread.
“Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus said.
So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore.
There were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn’t torn.
“Now come and have some breakfast!” Jesus said.
None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?”
They knew it was the Lord.”
John 21:3-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.21.3-9.NLT
Only a fisherman would have stopped to count the fish. I can see John motioning with his hands widespread as he recounted the details of that early morning catch. There weren’t just 153 fish. There were 153 large fish.” I’ve heard my husband and son animatedly give the play by play of their bass fishing tournaments, each feeding off the excitement of the other. I especially remember when Jacob only missed first prize for biggest fish by tenths of an ounce. The added detail of Peter having stripped for work and stopping to don his tunic before jumping overboard makes me chuckle as I think of several similar stories I’ve heard from my boys.
After abandoning the boat to get to Jesus and returning to haul in their catch, after the excitement died down and everyone finished their meal, did they talk about that time Jesus came walking on water and Peter joined Him? As their clothes dried in the warm sun, salt from the sea drying on their skin, did they feel His hands again, dipping cool water from the basin, washing their feet on the very night He was betrayed? Each one may have gotten lost in their own thoughts as they watched the resurrected Jesus, remembering a look He had given them before, the pressure of His work-worn hand warm on their shoulder, His tears over Jerusalem and those that stained rock like drops of blood. All of it. Everything they saw and felt recorded so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. They were human and they show us in the ups and downs how to walk with Jesus.
All joking aside, what came next is one of the best reconciliation stories the world has ever seen after the cross. This is one we all face sooner or later. We will betray or be betrayed if we live long enough. I literally feel the knot in Peter’s stomach as he swallows the first mouthful of fish. There is no doubt in my mind that the father of lies, that opportunistic old snake, Satan, stirred up the memory of Peter’s denials.
“But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1jn.1.7.NLT
“After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.
Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.
A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time.
He said, “Lord, you know everything.
You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.”
Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved—the one who had leaned over to Jesus during supper and asked, “Lord, who will betray you?”
Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?”
Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?
As for you, follow me.””
John 21:15-17, 20-22 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.21.15-22.NLT
“For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.
And now he has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior.
He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.”
2 Timothy 1:9-10, 14 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2ti.1.9-14.NLT
“Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.
We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.”
Ephesians 2:20-21 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.2.20-21.NLT
This is the believers reality. Embrace it and run with endurance the race set before you. Be holy because He is Holy. Never take yourself too seriously and don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. Don’t make excuses for sin, forgetting how great a price Jesus paid when He died for you.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/gal.2.20.NIV
When you are tempted to hide behind picture perfect snapshots, edits of your real, ordinary, everyday life, choose to be genuine instead. God knows.
Outrun You ~Band Reeves https://youtu.be/lfW9H_T-CLM?si=xUulxApOqOSPUQpK
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