Tuesday 30 Jun 2020

June 30: John 21:15-19

Key Verse: John 21:16
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

Devotion:
How often does your loyalty get called into question? If you are like me then it is probably quite often because I seem to do silly things without thinking of the consequences and end up  upsetting people without wanting to. But there are a couple of things these verses remind us of...

I think the first one is that our actions are going to have consequences. No matter how careful we are about doing things, there will always be someone who does not agree with the way we do things and points it out at some stage. Whether this is good or bad is going to depend on what we are doing! But, as Jesus was reminding Simon Peter here, so He reminds us every day as well. We say one thing, but are we following what we say up with what we do – are our actions the same as what we say they should be?

Jesus knows our hearts and knows what we are capable of. He asks us to stretch ourselves when we do things for Him, but He knows we are capable of doing those things before He asks – we may not think so… He has carefully selected each one of us for the things He has planned because He knows what has to be done. If we are going to be the ones saying ‘here I am, use me’ then we need to live up to that!

The second thing we are reminded of here is our own commitment to Jesus. We may say we believe. We may say we care. We may say we love… but how much of that bears fruit in our lives? How much of what we say does happen? Jesus made sure each promise which came out of His mouth came to pass and He continues to live up to those promises. He did not say “I promise to...” but simply spoke the words and we can take those words as promises. Why can’t we be more like that in our lives? Why can’t we just tell the truth and mean what we say?

Points to Ponder:
Do you bend the truth sometimes?

Do you know God sees the actual truth all the time?