“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

Peter and John are examples of what should happen when we meet the risen Christ. They had walked with Jesus for three years and had seen His many miracles. They had seen His compassion and wisdom. They had seen His strength and His resolve. Yet, they still did not understand Him.

When Jesus was arrested, they ran. When He was being tried they hid. When Peter was confronted, he denied. After Jesus was crucified, they were discouraged. They talked about the good run they had had, but it was time to go back to fishing.

Then something amazing happened. Christ rose from the dead and presented Himself to them. Suddenly, these men who were hidden in an upper room discussing their return to normal life began to be strengthened. They saw the risen savior and touched Him. They received the Holy Spirit and was filled by Him. They suddenly had more wisdom and courage. They went from hiding to preaching boldly, and possibly all but John would go on to be martyred for their message.

So what happened? The same thing that should happen to us. We have seen the risen Christ through His Word and many other evidences. We have received the Holy Spirit. We know who Jesus was (and is) and what He means to this world. We should boldly step from hiding to the open proclamation of Him. We have had the same experiences as the men who walked with Him; we should have the same boldness. People should marvel that we have been changed and in us, they should now see Him.

Adrian Rogers tells about the man who bragged that he had cut off the tail of a man-eating lion with his pocket knife. Asked why he hadn’t cut off the lion’s head, the man replied: “Someone had already done that.” Christ’s boldness has paved the way for our boldness. He has done the hardest work, so we can do the hard work. He has declawed fear, so that we need not fear.

Let’s not talk about how great it was that the disciples were changed; Let’s change who we are and talk about how great Christ is. Let the world marvel that we of lowly positions (most positions are lowly), seem to speak like we have some special knowledge and boldness- because we do.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30

“Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”  John 15:20-21

The two verses above seem to be in conflict with each other, but how can that be?  How can we have restful persecution? Christ told his followers that they would be persecuted because of Him,  but also told them to take His yoke upon them because it was light.  Christ told His followers that they would find rest in Him, but that they would be harassed, beaten, and even killed.  That doesn’t seem like a very light yoke to carry!

It is sometimes very difficult to come to terms with these seemingly conflicting ideas. Paul expressed the same conflicts in all of the epistles. He talked about the safety and peace and freedom in Christ as he wrote from prison after experiencing beatings, shipwrecks, and stonings. His burdens seem far from easy and light. The amount he had to suffer was astonishing.  The amount the apostles had to suffer was equally difficult.  Yet they were still able to rejoice because they “knew Christ, the power of his resurrection and participated in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10)

When we are serving God there are times when we feel like the burden he has placed on us is more than we can bear. Like a runner we ‘hit the wall’ and feel we can’t carry on. But when we take a fresh look at what we are aiming for, and remember the finish line and the rewards that wait there, we somehow manage to push through. We may ‘feel the burn’ but we know we are gaining ground and the burden no longer seems as impossible as it first did.

Paul tells us, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.” Philippians 3:12-15

The key is that in everything we do we need to focus on Jesus. Even the mundane daily tasks need to be seen as serving him. That is how His yoke becomes light.  If we are working for him instead of ourselves – if it is His burden we are bearing – then he will share it with us, and help us understand that the burden is actually “easy and light .“ It may not be easy and light as the world sees easy and light, but with God sharing the burden, nothing is too heavy.

If we have a heart for the Lord, and we put the Lord into all we do, then our hearts will be strengthened in our difficulties as well.  Like it says in Luke, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”   If our hearts are in Jesus the loads we carry will not seem such a burden. This is especially true when we realize the reward that awaits us in the end.

Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a storm that caught a vessel off a rocky coast and threatened to drive it and its passengers to destruction. In the midst of the terror, one daring man, contrary to orders, went to the deck, made a dangerous passage to the pilot house and saw the steer man, at his post holding the wheel unwaveringly, and inch by inch, turning the ship out, once more, to sea. The pilot saw the watcher and smiled. Then, the daring passenger went below and gave out a note of cheer: “I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well.”  If we find ourselves in a life storm but see the face of Jesus and His hand upon the wheel of our lives, we can say to ourselves and others “All is Well.”

So our burden is light, not because it is light, but because it is being borne by the same shoulders which took the sins of the world upon them, and nothing is heavy after that.  His smile on our lives tells us that “All is well.”

“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving” Colossians 4:2

Two commands are given in this short directive from the apostle Paul: continue and watch. First, we are to continue in daily and fervent prayer to God.  In 1 Thessalonians Paul tells us to pray unceasingly and in every epistle he reminds us to devote ourselves to prayer.  Prayer was a key to Paul’s instructions to us.  Christ’s words and example were also  constant reminders of the importance of prayer.  But in this verse Paul reminds us that as we pray, we must be also be carefully “watching” for occasions of thanksgiving.

The word “watch” means to be vigilant, alert, attentive. We must be intentional in our watch.  It is not something that will come naturally.  It is hard to see good in difficult situations or peace in turmoil.  It seems Paul knew that we have a tendency to be forgetful of the Lord’s blessings in our lives. We tend to take even the greatest mercies and most undeserved gifts for granted. We forget to give thanks for God’s place in our lives.

As we pray, we should be watchful for opportunities to give thanks.  No matter what the situation, we should intentionally look for the ways that we have been blessed.  And how blessed we have been!!  There is an old saying that says, “I was complaining about not having shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.”  Unless we “watch” for things to be thankful for, we will probably neglect to be thankful.  Our natural tendencies are to be selfish and ungrateful.  We need to ask ourselves, is there something in this request for which I could also be giving thanks? Is there a reason to be grateful, even in the midst of this trial?

For instance, as we pray for a loved one to be healed, couldn’t we be grateful for having the loved one in our lives to begin with? As we pray for revival in our country, in our church, and in our homes, couldn’t we thank God for the promise that he will be found by those who seek him?  This morning as I sit here and the sun is just coming up, I see in just a glance a hundred things to be grateful for.  The sky is beautiful, my deck is sturdy, my home is solid, and family is safe. The birds are all around me filling the air with song. But could I sit here and not see any of these things, not hear any of these things, not be thankful for any of these things if I did not take the time to look for them. There is no way my difficulties can outnumber my blessings, but I must be alert to those blessings or I will miss them.

A man had a habit of grumbling at the food his wife placed before him at family meals. Then he would ask the blessing. One day after his usual combination complaint-prayer, his little girl asked, “Daddy, does God hear us when we pray?”

“Why, of course,” he replied. “He hears us every time we pray.”

She paused on this a moment, and asked, “Does He hear everything we say the rest of the time?”

“Yes, dear, every word,” he replied, encouraged that he had inspired his daughter to be curious about spiritual matters. However, his pride was quickly turned to humility at his daughter’s next question.

“Then, which does God believe?”

Our thankfulness to God in prayer should match our thankfulness to God in our daily lives. We must be careful to pray every day, and as we pray, we must be careful to give thanks to God for his abundant provision and marvelous promises. Even in the needs, even in the sorrows, even in the trials there are always reasons to be grateful.  There was once a preacher who did a sermon on thankfulness and at the end he passed his hat.  When it was returned to him, there was nothing in it, but he knew he needed to give thanks. He said, “Thank you God I got my hat back from this group.”  It was hard, but he found something to be grateful for!!

Sometimes it is good during our difficulties to make a “thankful sandwich” when we pray.  Our need should be placed between two slices of thankfulness.  Be thankful for something God has done, then present our need, then finish it off with something more else to be thankful for.  If we are twice as thankful as we are needy, it will hold our prayers together.

“You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”  Psalms 30:11-12

What a great promise we have here.  God can turn our mourning into dancing.  He takes our sadness and can clothe us in gladness.  He is the transformer of emotions and the producer of joy. This is a wonderful truth to keep in mind when we go through those tough times that will always come.

I have known many who have had to stop  a bad habit.  That habit could be anything from smoking to over eating to inappropriate language.  It seems that in every case the habit must be replaced by something positive to really effect a change in behavior.  If we quit something, there is a void left and if we don’t fill it with something, it will get filled on its own, sometimes with something just as bad.  For instance, today many people try to quit smoking by us vaping. Recent studies show that vaping might be bringing a host of new problems itself.  It is one problem replaced by another.

When my dad quit smoking after 30 years, I saw him do something I had never seen him do before- he chewed gum.  Before he quit it that was hard for him to do because chewing gum with a cigarette in your mouth is pretty difficult, if not dangerous.  Even though he told me that he never craved a cigarette from the day he made the decision to quit, the habits of using his hands to hold something, having something in his mouth, feeling relaxed, and others still had to be filled.  The main thing he did was pray.  The day he quit he made the drive from Portland to Grants Pass and he said he prayed the whole way and had never done that before.  He replaced the bad with something good.

God knows that if we are in mourning, that mourning cannot be just taken away- it must be replaced with something.  The verses in Psalms tell us that God doesn’t simply remove our mourning and make it go away, He replaces it with something better. We won’t just stop mourning, but we will eventually start dancing.  That means that we will move beyond the pain and actually feel whole again.

I have a friend who lost his daughter to a sixteen year battle with cancer.  He is still grieves her loss a year later.  Understandably, because there may be no harder hurt than losing a child. How can such a tragedy be replaced with peace?  I think a story that FB Meyer’s tells might hold they key. One day he met a miserable-looking woman who shared that she had recently lost her crippled daughter who she had cared for for years. She was the joy of her life.  The mother was now alone and  home was not “home” anymore. Meyer gave her wise counsel. “When you get home and put the key in the door,” he said, “say aloud, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!’ and be ready to greet Him directly when you open the door. And as you light the fire tell Him what has happened during the day; if anybody has been kind, tell Him; if anybody has been unkind, tell Him, just as you would have told your daughter. At night stretch out your hand in the darkness and say, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!'” Months later, Meyer was back in that neighborhood and met the woman again, but he did not recognize her. Her face radiated joy instead of announcing misery. “I did as you told me,” she said, “and it has made all the difference in my life, and now I feel I know Him.”  This woman had replaced the loss of a daughter with the love of the Father.

We will experience times of sadness- we are surrounded by it, but God can remove that and replace it with something good. Probably not immediately, but it will happen. He might do that through His Word, an encouraging song from the radio, or even a phone call from a friend.  He knows our hurt and knows how much we can take.  He is watching and waiting for our call and is poised to have a replacement handy.

I had a friend once who had a real potty mouth.  After he was saved, he lost about 50% of his vocabulary.  He had to make some real changes, but it was hard because his old habit was right on the tip of his tongue.  He came up with a safe alternative to swearing.  Every time he felt a profanity raising its ugly head, he would clear his throat. This gave him time to think about what he was doing.  It was the equivalent of counting to ten before doing something.  Admittedly, at the beginning everyone thought he had a chronic cough.  But as he got more control of his tongue, the less he had to clear his throat.  He substituted something good (or at least neutral) for something bad. Pretty soon he had cleared out the inclination to swear and could stop clearing out his throat.

We need to think about what these verses mean to us. Our sorrows, disappointments, tragedies and failures are very real — but they are also “raw material” for a transformation that God will accomplish in us if we allow Him to.  And we WILL dance! God will do it. He has picked out the steps already.  When we dance, we will sing to Him and the circle of healing will be complete. Our part is simply to wait…believe…and cling tightly to this wonderful promise!