It seemed as though the apostle Peter could do it all!  Someone had to be the leader among the twelve disciples. And Peter more or less grabbed the role.  As a child, he was probably the one who swam the farthest on hot afternoons in the Sea of Galilee.  And when the weather cooled and kids from the neighborhood decided to build a tree house, he probably climbed the highest and barked out the orders.

He dominated fishing expeditions as a adult, and he dominated the Gospels as a disciple.  He was usually the first to speak and the first to act.  He was impulsive, extroverted, extreme, and impatient.  And he was also the disciple whom Jesus called “the Rock.”

In fact, the Master said that he would build his very church on Peter.  In other words, Jesus saw a lot of strength, giftedness, and potential in Peter.  Though he wasn’t the first disciple chosen to follow Christ, he’s at the top of the list in all four Gospel accounts when the disciples are named.  His brother Andrew was actually the first disciple selected by Christ, but Peter clearly outshined him.

Andrew was good one-on-one (see October 12-14 for more information on Andrew), but his brother Peter was great with many.  He loved the spotlight.  He was at home in front of a crowd.  He had multiple talents … and he was “the Rock.”

But the road to becoming the Rock wasn’t easy.  Shortly after Jesus named Peter the Rock, he said his response was from the devil.  Jesus had begun to tell his disciples that he would be handed over to the authorities and killed, and Peter blurted out, “No way!  We’ll never let that happen to you.”  And Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!”  Whoa!  One minute a rock and the next minute the voice of Satan?

I would be a long road for Peter.  When he proudly boasted at the Last Supper that he would never deny Jesus, the Lord calmly told him that by the time the rooster crowed the next morning, Peter would have already denied him – not once, but three times!

Sure enough, after Jesus was taken away, people noticed Peter hanging out by the fire to warm his hands and mentioned that he was one of Christ’s disciples.  Peter flatly denied it.  It was brought up again, and Peter vehemently denied it.  The third time it was mentioned, the Bible tells us Peter responded in anger and cursed.

Imagine how he must have felt when the rooster crowed and he turned around to see Jesus being led away.  Imagine their eyes meeting and how terribly how Peter must have felt.  A rock? He must have thought. I’m sand, and I know it.

BY BERNICE BROOKS

Just around the next corner someone had left a dog on a leash tied to a tree.  He was a big, friendly mutt, and we had all seen him there before, but today he couldn’t quite reach the pan of water left for him.  He was straining at his leash and whining.

I thought, What cruel pet owner would tie up a dog and not leave his water where he could reach it?  But I hurried on.

As we neared the gym, a car passed us and parked close to the door.  I recognized the man who got out as one of the maintenance crew.  I also noticed he left the lights on.  “He’s going to have a problem when he tries to start that car to go home tonight,” the guy next to me said.

By now we were going in the doors of the gym.  The maintenance man waved a greeting to us and disappeared down one of the halls.  We found seats close to where our teacher waited.

The professor stood with his arms folded, looking at us.  We looked back.  The silence became uncomfortable.  We all knew his tests were also teaching tools, and we wondered what he was up to.  He motioned toward the door, and in walked the blind man, the young mother with her baby, a girl holding the big dog on a leash, and the maintenance man.

These people had been planted along the way in an effort to test whether or not the class had grasped the meaning behind [Jesus’] story of the man who fell among thieves.

We all failed.

:::

How would you have rated in the above final?  In a sense, God gives us this kind of final every single day, doesn’t he?  If we call ourselves Christians, it means we live out his love and kindness in the line at the grocery store as well as in front of a crowd.  It’s much easier to have others compliment us for being a good Christian than it is to live it out by pushing a wheelchair, carrying groceries for an elderly person, or stopping to chat with a lonely child.

Live and act as though you’re aware God is giving you a final exam each day of your life.

BY BERNICE BROOKS

Finals week had arrived with all its stress.  I had been up late cramming for an exam.  Now, as I slumped in my seat, I felt like a spring that had been wound too tight.  I had two tests back-to-back, and I was anxious to get through with them.  At the same time I expected to be able to maintain my straight-A grade point average.

As I waited impatiently for the professor to arrive, a stranger walked up to the chalkboard and began to write.  “Due to a conflict, your professor is unable to give you your test in this classroom.  He’s waiting for you in the gymnasium.”

Oh great, I thought.  Now I have to walk clear across campus just to take this stupid exam.

The entire class was scurrying out the door and rushing to the gym.  No one wanted to be late for the final, and we weren’t wasting time talking.  The route to the gym took us past the hospital.  There was a man stumbling around in front of it.  I recognized him as the young blind man whose wife had just given birth to a baby in that hospital.  He had been there before, but he must have become confused.

Oh, well, I told myself.  Someone will come along soon and help him.  I just don’t have time to stop now.  So I hurried along with the rest of the class on our way to take that final exam.  As we continued down the sidewalk, a woman came rushing out of a nearby bookstore.  She had a baby on one arm, a stack of books in the other, and a worried look on her face.  The books fell onto the sidewalk, and the baby began to cry as she stopped to pick them up.

She should have left that kid at home, I thought.  I dodged her as the class and I rushed along.

:::

We’ll take a break in the story right here and finish it during tomorrow’s devotional.  But let’s chat about something first, okay?  How do you react when someone changes your plans at the last moment?  Like the student in this story, do you become frustrated with those last-minute changes?  Or are you flexible?

An unteachable spirit is hard to deal with.  God needs disciples who are willing to be broken, reshaped, and molded into his holy image.  That means we need to go with God’s flow.  When he tells us to change directions, we do it.  When he decides to alter our plans, we comply.

A survey was conducted with 890 middle school students, ages eleven to thirteen.  They were asked if they’d like to be president of the United Sates when they grew up.  Only 43 percent said they’d want the job.  Fifty-seven percent admitted they wouldn’t be interested.  The students said the most important issues facing the nation were:

• Keeping the United States free from terrorists (30 percent).
• Helping students become well educated (26 percent).
• Making sure everyone gets good health care (16 percent).

So what do most kids want to do instead of becoming a future U.S. President?  Sixty –six percent aspire to be entrepreneurs.

While those are wonderful aspirations, what would it take for students to say:

• “I want to be in full-time ministry when I grow up.”
• “I want to learn an unwritten language and translate the Bible for a specific   

               people group.”

• “I’d like to be a nurse for AIDS orphans.”
• “I want to help people in third world countries with agriculture.”
• “I’d like to teach deaf students.”
• “I want to make a positive difference in the inner city by running for mayor.”
• “I want to be an attorney and offer my services for free to help the poor.”
• “I’d like to be a physical therapist for the handicapped.”

Why do we most often think of careers that will fatten our wallets and build our prestige instead of careers that can make a lifetime of difference?  God may very well call you into a lucrative career.  If he does, he’s trusting you to remain faithful to him ad support your local church and worldwide missions by making giving a priority.

But what if he has something else in mind for you?  He’s still going to trust you to make tithing a priority, to support your local church, and to give as he directs toward missions.  But would you be willing to consider a future of giving to people who can’t give back?  Would you agree to pray about doing whatever God calls you to do?

Ready for the scoop on some cereal factoids?  Seventy-two percent of people who eat breakfast eat only cereal in the morning.  Ten percent of households across the nation eat cereal for other meals. 

Cheerios was ranked the most popular cereal and boasted $288 million in sales last year.  Frosted flakes came in second with $242 million.

Imagine entering a restaurant to place your order with an employee who’s wearing pajamas.  That’s the norm for Cereality Cereal Bar and Café.  Think Starbucks and then translate that to cereal.  You have your choice of several varieties of cereal and toppings.  If you’re a regular customer, you can even enter your ID number on a touch-screen computer and your regular order will come up automatically.

Customers get to create their own selections and mix different kinds of cereal.  It’s a cereal smorgasbord where the customer chooses everything!

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?  Customers enter a casual atmosphere surrounded with pajama-clad servers and order whatever cereal concoction they come up with.

Unfortunately, many people view religion this way.  They casually saunter through a bookstore, picking a book on Hinduism, a brochure on New Age thought, and something else on Buddhism, and then they grab a Bible on their way out.  They assume religion, like cereal, can be mixed and matched to their convenience.

I’ll take a tiny bit of Christianity, they think, and add a touch of New Age, toss in some Wicca, and coat it with Islam.  They’re oblivious to the fact that we can’t create our own religion if we want to spend eternity in heaven.

Christianity is all about a relationship with Jesus Christ.  And trying to mix other beliefs into a relationship with Christ doesn’t work.  Imagine returning from your honeymoon someday and saying to your spouse, “Honey, I love so many things about you!  But I’m also attracted to some qualities I see in other people.  So don’t be surprised if I add these other people to our marriage.  I think we can make it stronger by adding more participants.”

Your spouse would think you’re crazy”!  In essence, that’s what we’re doing when we try to bring pieces of other belief systems into our relationship with Christ.  It doesn’t work.  It won’t work. It will never work!

On October 16, 28, and 31, I challenged you to ask God what you could do to make a difference this Christmas in the life of someone living in a third world country, someone less fortunate than yourself.  Samaritan’s Purse – a ministry organization headed by Franklin Graham – has several gifts that you alone or you and your friends and family could give.  But if you don’t do it soon, the gift won’t arrive in time for Christmas.

Here are a few more options:

• Transform a life with a wheelchair.  Samaritan’s Purse has provided wheelchairs to thousands of disabled people in poverty-stricken regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.  One young Mexican man, unable to walk since he was run over by a truck when he was eleven years old, had to be carried around in a plastic chair.  At age twenty, he had no hope for the future.  That changed when local believers delivered a wheelchair provided by Samaritan’s Purse.  Now he can go back to school, get a job, and make a fresh start in life.  For only $75, you can supply a needy child or adult with a sturdy wheelchair, bringing hope, freedom, and dignity in the name of Jesus Christ.
• Comfort an innocent victim of AIDS.  One chilling statistic sums up the tragedy of HIV/AIDS: 14 million orphans.  Over the next decade, that number could exceed 50 million.  Sadly, many of these children are infected with HIV at birth.  Local believers in hard-hit areas of Africa and Asia are eager to help these suffering girls and boys, but often they’re overwhelmed by the expense.  For $35 a month, you can help loving Christians care for an AIDS orphan in a home filled with the peace and joy of Jesus Christ.  You may only be able to provide care for one month; that’s still priceless to an orphan suffering with AIDS.

Give food parcels.  When church workers deliver family-size parcels of food in impoverished communities, doors and hearts open up.  Believers are encouraged, while nonbelievers are eager to learn more about the Christian faith.  Monthly home visits provide regular opportunities to share the gospel.  In poverty-stricken areas of Mozambique, Israel, Iraq, and other countries, Samaritan’s Purse provides local ministry partners with the resources to reach out to needy families with food and other aid.  For $34, you can furnish a malnourished family with a supplemental food parcel filled with rice, beans, flour, salt, cooking oil, and other items.

Christ encourages the Christians in Sardis who have remained faithful to continue in their faithfulness.  There was only a remnant of faithful followers, but he promised to reward them.  Christ said he’ll call them worthy and clothe them in white garments.  None of us can remain faithful on our own.  We can overcome only through the blood of Christ and by the empowering of his Holy Spirit within us.

Christ then mentions that he will not “blot out” their names.  Some Bible scholars believe that everyone’s name is written in the Book of Life.  If, however, someone never places his trust in Christ and doesn’t live for him, that person’s same is removed, or blotted out.

Other theologians believe that when you become a Christian, your name is then entered into the Book of Life.  The important thing is simply to make sure your name is in heaven’s book.  How can you know for sure?  If you’ve confessed your sins, accepted the Lord’s forgiveness, placed your faith in him, and are living in a relationship with him, you’re a Christian; your name is recorded in the Book of Life.  You can know for sure.  You don’t have to wonder.  God wants to give you his blessed assurance.

The Lord closes his letter to the church in Sardis by repeating what he’s said in previous letters: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” (Revelation 3:6, KJV).

Again, we are the church.  The Christians are the body of Christ.  And he tells us to listen carefully to what he’s just said.  That tells us the book of Revelation is certainly relevant to us right now!  Not only were the Christians in Sardis expected to heed Jesus’ words, but the same is expected of us today.  We do not have the authority to declare that the Bible is untrue.

Christ tells the church in Sardis to remember what they first heard and were taught.  What was that?  It was the Word of God. They had strayed from biblical teaching and the message of the gospel, as many of us have today.  Christ condemns them for this and tells them to repent.

Some churches today don’t peach the Word of God.  Their people hear positive messages full of feel-good advice, but when it comes to calling sin sin, truth isn’t being taught.

Please be aware of what you choose to believe.  The apostle John tells us in 1 John 4 and in 2 John to examine what we hear, and if it can’t be backed up by Scripture, we shouldn’t assume it’s from God.  Simply because a good person holds a microphone in his hand, stands on a church platform, and speaks positive words doesn’t mean he’s speaking God’s truth.

There are leaders in the church today who hold huge conferences to decide what in the Bible is really true and what’s not.  Friends, that’s dangerous ground!  I know Christian professors at Christian universities who tell their students that the only thing they can count on for sure from the Bible is the resurrection of Christ.

Some students on Christian campuses are being told by their religion professors to forget everything they ever learned in Sunday school because it’s all wrong.  “During the course of this semester,” they boast, “we’ll teach you what’s true.”

They teach that the sayings of Isaiah, many of the promises of the Kingdom, and the teachings of Revelation are just allegorical.  They’re asking students to question the historicity of Job, Jonah, and the first few chapters of Genesis.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking critically at aspects of our faith.  But when we question God’s very Word, we’re wandering from the basics.

Christ, in his letter to the church is Sardis, tells us very clearly to get back to the basics – to lean on the gospel as dependable truth.  If we don’t, he says we’ll be caught off guard by Jesus’ return.

Christ continues by saying that he knows some Christians in Sardis have remained faithful.  They hadn’t given up the gospel message, they were living in watchful expectation of Christ’s return, and they were actively involved in ministry.

It’s always only a remnant of people who choose to follow Christ.  It was that way in Sardis, it was that way when Jesus walked the earth, and it’s still that way today.  Perhaps that’s why he refers to us as his “little flock.”  Christians who live holy lives empowered by God’s Spirit have certainly always been in the minority.  Choose to be one of the godly minority.

Jesus warned the church at Sardis to be ready for his return.  It would be easy to be ready for Christ if we knew the exact day and hour, wouldn’t it?  If we knew he was coming back next Saturday, we’d have all our ducks in a row.  We would seek forgiveness from those we’ve hurt.  We’d make sure our tithes and offerings were paid.  And we’d probably spend more time reading the Word and praying.

Since we don’t know the exact day or hour of his return, we have to be constantly ready.  Live as though he might return tonight.

Christ tells the Christians in Sardis that if they’re not ready and watchful for his coming, his return will seem sudden – just like an unexpected thief.  We don’t plan to be robbed.  A thief doesn’t alert us a couple of days in advance, “I’ll be in your neighborhood on Wednesday.  Leave your front door unlocked, okay?  I’ll back the truck right up to the garage to make it easy to load that plasma TV you have in your living room.”

It doesn’t happen that way!  The thief comes when we aren’t expecting him, so wise home owners will invest in alarm systems and keep their doors locked for safety.  The home owner wants to be prepared to avert the thief when he approaches.  “Rats!  They have an alarm system.  Not gonna be able to crack that.  And their doors are locked.  Ah, might as well go find another house whose owners aren’t so prepared.”

In the same way, Christians want to prepare for Christ’s coming.  We should have the door to our hearts unlocked, have our Bible open, and be wearing a welcome sign through our actions.  We want to be ready for his return.  If we’re not ready, Christ says his coming will seem unexpected to us.  ‘Hey! I’ve had a really tough week with exams and work.  I didn’t think he’d come this week!  I was planning on catching up on my Bible readying during Christmas break.  But he came this morning, and he caught me totally off guard.”

In Christ’s letter to the church of Thyatira that though the Lord had much to correct them for, he did commend them for their service, faith, and patience.  But here at Sardis, he just says, “You’re dead.”

We, too, need to be carful not to fall into the easy trap of being complacent because we’re saved.  God expects us to dedicate our lives to him and keep growing spiritually.

Christ tells the church in Sardis to “be watchful” or to “wake up!”  This is the Lord’s word of condemnation.  When the people of Sardis weren’t watchful, their city fell to invaders.  It was located on top of a mountain.  They only had one entrance into the city, and it was on the southern side.  Sounds easy to defend, doesn‘t it?  All they needed to do was place some guards by that one entrance!

But twice Sardis had been invaded by its enemies because the guard fell asleep on the job.  You see, because the city was on top of a mountain, they felt secure.  They believed no one would dare climb the mountain to attack them.  They found out the hard way that they were wrong.

So, too, people in the church had fallen asleep spiritually.  It was as if they were thinking, We’re on solid ground.  We won’t get knocked down.  We’re feeling good.  So when Jesus condemns them, it’s with a warning.  It’s as though he’s saying, “You church people should know better!  Take a look at the history of your own city.  That itself should tell you the results of resting in a false sense of security.  Watch out!”

We need to be alert and remain watchful for the coming of our Savior.  We don’t know when Christ will return, but we know he’s coming!  We should live in expectancy so he won’t find us spiritually asleep when he returns for his children.

Jesus told a parable about the bridegroom coming for his bride.  Ten bridesmaids anxiously awaited the bridegroom.  (The bridegroom symbolizes Christ, and the bridesmaids symbolize the church – Christians.)  Some of the bridesmaids ran out of oil for their lamps.  They left to go get more oil, and the bridegroom came while they were away.  Jesus ended this parable by saying, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:13).  We need to be ready for his coming.