Changed Man

Read Acts 3-6:7
 
Acts 4:5-10 The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. 7 They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, 9 are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? 10 Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.”
 
PETER was perhaps only a few physical steps from the man who said, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!” (Matthew 26:74), but he was an eternal distance from his denial of Jesus.
   There is Peter, standing before he same people who killed Jesus. The fearful disciple had become the faithful apostle. He is a healer, a proclaimer, an evangelist, a teacher, a leader and a preacher. Peter’s voice is the first in history to preach the gospel. His fisherman hands have tenderly restored the broken and lifted the lame. Peter’s pride has become a servant’s humility through his confidence in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
   When someone asks, “What do you think of Peter?” our response often speaks to his broken life. “He denied Christ.” “He was impulsive.” “He didn’t have faith to walk to Jesus on the water.” “He cut off the guard’s ear.” Seldom do we mention, if we even know, Peter’s Spirit-empowered work to advance Christ’s Great Commission.
   Acts will later record how he raised Dorcas from her deathbed in Joppa and how the Spirit appointed Peter to begin the gospel to the Gentiles at Cornelius’ home. We also will read of Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Antioch when Peter favored the Jews and ignored the Gentiles (Galatians 2:11). Ultimately, the apostle who denied Christ, died for Christ, crucified upside down.
   Each of us has sins and weaknesses in our past. We deal with those each day. But they are no reason for us to say, “I’m not qualified.” Jesus wants our hearts. He wants our repentance. He wants our love and confession, “You are the Son of God.” Then he wants us to live into that confession under the Spirit’s power.
          Are you made new in Chris, too? Then each day you can tell someone, “I’m healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene.”