SERIES ON PETER
■ by D. Stuart Briscoe women who will be vital Christians in ordinary places of work. One day the Lord Jesus came to them while they were on the job. He said straightforwardly, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The first part is actually a command, while the second half is a promise. Christ didn’t plead, beg or wish. He exhorted, “Follow Me.” Sometimes the Lord has to speak very forcefully to us before we will listen. He has every right to com mand us. He wants us to move into a new experience where we are con tinually following Him. Our salva tion was not just so that we could go to heaven when we die. He didn’t save us just so that we might have our sins forgiven. He has ordained a life of discipleship, and fellowship with Him. You see, salvation is not merely one blinding experience of coming to know Christ, but also a daily experience of abundant victory, communion and fellowship. Have you heard the Lord say, “Follow Me” ? Have you been faithful in doing it? Many people have different ideas about Christianity. There seem to be many versions of the Gospel. Yet too many ignore and neglect the One who founded Christianity. Do you ever take time to read the Gospel according to the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you seen Christianity as He saw it? Christ said, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that lov eth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” To follow the Lord doesn’t mean that we look only at His example, trying to imitate Him.
FOLLOW ME T here is so much for us to leant concerning the life of the Apos tle Peter. He was a man who was very ordinary. When the Lord Jesus Christ got a grip on him, however, he did the most extraordinary things. When the Saviour starts working in an ordinary person's life, you can expect something fa r beyond human comprehension to result. Our prob lems come in when we limit the Holy Spirit. Anything less than an or dinary life is not God’s kind of Christianity. Victory comes when the power of the risen Christ is let loose in every phase of our daily existence. This is the reason for studying the life of Peter. We want to find out how these miraculous things came to pass in his life. Have you carefully evaluated your life, seeing if you are a link in the chain of bringing people to know the Lord Jesus? When the apostle met the Lord, the process began of changing one who was an object of failure into an individual who would be mighty unto God. In Matthew 4:18 we read about the call, “And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Pet er, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Fol low me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets.” Some people see a con tradiction in these two passages. There seem to be two different ac counts of the same occurrence. Per sonally, I believe them to be two separate incidents. On the first occasion Andrew brought Simon to the Lord Jesus. After they had both come to know the Lord, they went back to their ordinary jobs of fishing. This shows that God desperately wants men and
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