Like Them

July 3

"Jesus is the One whom God raised from the dead. And we are all witnesses to this." Acts 2:32

We don't know where the disciples went when they fled the garden, but we do know what they took: a memory. They took a heart-stopping memory of a Man who called Himself no less than God in the flesh. And they couldn't get Him out of their minds. Try as they might to lose Him in the crowd, they couldn't forget Him.

If they saw a leper, they thought of His compassion. If they heard a storm, they would remember the day He silenced one. If they saw a child, they would think of the day He held one. And if they saw a lamb being carried to the temple, they would remember His face streaked with blood and His eyes flooded with love.

No, they couldn't forget Him. As a result, they came back. And as a result, the Church of our Lord began with a group of frightened men in an upper room. Six Hours One Friday by Max Lucado




The disciples couldn’t forget Jesus. They fled from the scene of His torture, but they could not erase Him from their minds. Oh, no, it was not the cruelty against Him by the Romans that stamped itself indelibly upon their minds—it was all the miraculous things He’d done until that point that were fastened in their memories! It was His emerging from the tomb that they could not forget!

All He has done in the past has impacted us, too. Believers today cannot allow themselves to have a momentary memory lapse regarding the power of the Savior we love and serve. The circumstances of our lives may distract us. The pressures of our trials may weigh heavily upon us. But the reality is, deep within our mind, is the knowledge of WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE HAS DONE—and for us that translates to WHAT HE CAN AND WILL YET DO!

What gives us this assurance, in the throes of all we suffer, that He will undertake in our behalf? What prompts us to trust Him when every new turn of events taunts us that our hope is in vain? Why should we yet lift our eyes toward Heaven when clouds of disappointment, of dashed expectations seem to darken our view? Why should we believe in Him?

Because we know He works in an unseen realm where sight is irrelevant! We know there is activity going on in the behalf of our situation that cannot be beheld except by eyes of faith! It is with these spiritual eyes that we must view our circumstances, assured of the veracity of His promise to use our prayers to pull down the strongholds about which we pray! (Philippians 3:21)

We must be like the Apostles who knew in the depth of their memory that Jesus had not diminished in power! And they remembered His promise to endue them with power from on high because He went to the Father! (Acts 1:8)

Like them, we are endued with power from on high! Like them, we shall see the impact of that power applied to the circumstances about which we pray! Like them, we shall transform the world around us, conform the circumstances of our lives to His glory—as we lay hold of the reality of His faithfulness!