The Challenge

I've underlined a verse in the 4th chapter of Acts. Maybe you have as well. Underlined, but too often overlooked, even forgotten in the depth of its meaning. It's after the resurrection of Christ and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the church. The disciples have been ministering and the church is exploding. The Jewish religious leaders, who thought they'd dealt with the problem by having Christ crucified, are alarmed beyond words. They have two of the leaders of the church, Peter and John brought before them. Verse 13 says, "They recognized them as men who had been with Jesus." 

I wonder; how deep did the recognition go? Was it a recognition based merely on their having been seen in His company? Or, was it a recognition that came from their seeing in Peter and John's eyes, countenances, and spirits, the very same attributes they'd seen in Jesus Himself when He'd stood before them not long before? That question leads me to another, deeper and more convicting one; what do people recognize about me as concerns my relationship with Jesus? Is it based on them also seeing me "in His company?" I'm a pastor. I go to church. I read the Bible. Most people who know me at all know that. In that sense, I too keep company with Him. But do they see something more? Do they see in me what they would surely see in Him? His heart? His character? His life? Do they recognize me as having been with Him because of these? Do they recognize you for the same?

It's not difficult to be recognized as having been with Him when we leave a church service, a Bible study, or a prayer group. We've been at our best and in the best of situations there. What are we like at our worst, and in the worst situations? What is seen? What are we recognized for? How often are we found to be "beyond recognition?" No, we're none of us perfect and we all have a generous portion of flaws, but how easy is it for us to use our all too human frailty as an excuse for living in ways that make us unrecognizable as followers and lovers of Jesus? In our relationships, under pressure, when faced with deep and unmet needs? In the place of hard choices, places that call for deep sacrifice? In His call for us to take up our cross, fashioned in the likeness of His, and follow Him to our own Calvary?

The world has always had the right to examine the church, to examine you and me. Seen in His company perhaps. Seen as looking at Him, but not looking much like Him. As they do, can we bear up under the question of just what is the "Jesus recognition level" in our walk? When we stand in the midst of tough choices, hard places, and deep challenges, who do we look like? What are we recognized for? What do they see and more, what does He see? Challenging questions that need to be asked and answered. Our culture grows ever darker. People are desperate to see those who've truly been with Jesus and who look like Jesus. Not our idea of Him but His. It's a challenge. Will we rise to it or run from it?

Blessings,

Pastor O