Resurrection Week - Friday

On this Friday, this penultimate day in Resurrection Week, we truly have come with bowed heads and hearts, knowing that many of us fall way short of our calling as believers, followers and servants of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

If you are as I am, I am not in the least bit proud of my service, my works in the Name of the Holy Spirit.

O yes! I serve a Risen Saviour! That is a boast I am never hesitant nor shy to make.

O yes! I know that He is living! That is a claim I am never unsure of, nor tentative about making.

O Yes! I see His Hand of mercy! That is a fact I can easily prove without fear of contradiction or ridicule.

O Yes! I hear His Voice of cheer! That is a statement I can boldly make without doubt, or gainsaying.

But alas our Lord’s works, as done through the Holy Ghost, the witnessing for which He enables all in whom He dwells, the power works as spoken by Jesus, are dead to me. What about you? What convincing proofs does your life evidence, showing and proving that Jesus is indeed alive and at work in you?

As we conclude the final steps in Resurrection Week, we must face again the responses of the servants of our Triune God, in Ahimelech and Peter and John. Be assured, by all the faith and trust that you can muster up, that this exercise has not been done to show you up as deceivers, traitors, failures or any such. The single purpose and intent is for all of us who desire to truly know the words and works of the Holy Ghost working in us in perfect tandem, to first be truthful about our feeble, inadequate, apology for what we claim as works inspired by the Holy Ghost. Unless we are pricked in heart and conscience, unless the Death and Resurrection of our Beloved Lord and Master, break us and melt us into total subservience to Him and until we die to our human nature and are controlled by our new given Spiritual nature, how can we ever hope to speak the words of Jesus, not ours, and perform His works, not ours?

It is imperative, yes crucial even, that we face head-on, truths seen in our responses to those who come to us, as servants and disciples of our Lord, to receive help.

We return to the man who is carrying two extremely heavy, social burdens in his life. His physical and financial conditions define him and even name him. Many know and refer to him as the crippled beggar. Of his two grave problems, he has shown a mindset, which only believes that those who pray religiously, those who are ardent worshippers of the One Lord God, have the perfect works of giving him alms. His mind and manner are set on such help from those who are religious and committed to prayer and worship. Now watch Peter and John as they follow the same religious rituals to a point. I say to a point, for when the crippled beggar asks for alms, Peter quickly and confidently replies with words of pure resurrection joy.

We conclude with victorious words of resurrection, from Peter and John, servants of God the Son and Ahimelech, servant of God the Father.