Peter And The Six

We ended yesterday’s meditation asking our Father in heaven to forgive us our ignorance and folly. Do you realize that our ignorance and folly are also seen in our worship of God? Do you know that to follow God is to worship God?

This is a most familiar, yet highly instructive and inclusive scene. Jesus, Jewish Rabbi, in whom is to be found not one single grain of pharisaical yeast, is a perfect example of a Lord and Master who teaches from life-exposition and life-example.

Here He is, a Jew, a Leader at that, in public, having fellowship with a Samaritan woman. Even the woman was a bit sceptical and puzzled at first, at Jesus’ openly brazen, law-breaking behaviour. We could well understand, see and hear her curious disdain, when she said this to the Jew before her. How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. John 4: 9b. It is in conversing with this Gentile woman whom He is converting, that we hear Him tell her about following, not laws and traditions, but the Living, Abiding Holy Spirit.

Indeed, to follow God is to worship God. May we hear again what Jesus is saying to that candidate of conversion, for it is for every single one of us who professes to follow Jesus in worship to God.  But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4: 23 – 24. Neither you nor I can be worshipping the Father, who is Spirit and not follow His Risen Son, our Lord and Master, who is also Spirit.

Is not this fact of Spiritual truth being clearly and indelibly written in our surrendered hearts and minds? Jesus is Spirit and we must follow Him in Spirit and Truth. This is the only way that we can honestly, sincerely and truthfully say, mean and live this profession. Where the Spirit leads us, we will follow Him and follow Him all the way. 

View again those seven men, Peter and six other believers, all older converts to Christianity. Through the Holy Spirit, they have created a huge fire on the streets of Joppa. Through the working Holy Spirit, they have just been given a life-altering change about following Jesus all the way, in Spirit and Truth. Peter was told, not just to have fellowship with three Gentile men who had come looking for him, but he followed them through the streets, all the way to get to Caesarea, to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile.

Permit me to divert a bit to be personal, for I believe that my questioning mind resembles the minds of many who are reading this. This is what had captured my deep interest. We were told that Peter was in Joppa. Were all the people with whom he was having fellowship, Jews? Were the six brethren who accompanied him only Jews? Quickly, I was shown that my questions could not be Holy Spirit engendered. They were of my carnal mind, and thinking and nothing of the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is present, He makes us all one, for with Him there is neither Jew nor Gentile. How could I therefore, in the presence of the Spirit, think on such a carnally base level? To all who were as I was, having now been corrected and sensitized, let us give deep praise and thanks to our Leader for His loving kindness and graciousness to us.

Holy Spirit, who else have we to follow but You? Who is a caring, jealous and protecting Leader like You? Thank You for not leaving us in our ignorance and folly. Amen!

We return to Peter. Has he not shown, in his actions, how far he would follow Jesus’ lead? Has Jesus not led Peter to make a fire in Joppa, as never before made, a fire of obedience, to burn up the dross of all his legalistic and lawful thinking?  Did not Peter, leading the six, follow where Jesus led them? Look at the sight there in Joppa, as all eyes can see Peter, a Jew, calmly and boldly walking and talking with three Gentiles, unafraid, unashamed and totally unmoved by staring eyes and acid tongues. Jesus had led Peter and his companions to give up and die to everything of their traditions and manner concerning Jew and Gentile. Believe you me, there was nothing Peter nor the six who accompanied him, would have wanted to hold on to for sentimental or other reasons. They too, never let the fire to consume all evil, waste. They threw everything in. They had to, to be able to follow Jesus where He was leading them. O yes, they obeyed completely, emptying themselves of all barriers and hindrances to follow Jesus’ Way.