With spring like weather, get out for a walk, Secret disciples count - holy week meditations p. 1

Can you see the skull? The farther you are from the rock face the easier to
see. Unceremoniously now a bus station. The place of execution is at the
top - Gordon's Calvary

When it comes to faith and believing, faith is right when the object is Lord Jesus.  When we come to trust Lord Jesus is our Savior, the son of God who died for us on the cross, our faith great or small is what matters.  The size of our faith is not what counts but the size of the one who saves us is everything.  As believers we come in all shapes and sizes, we all have different gifts and abilities, even the same gift works differently in each one of us.  One of us may be confident, we may be outgoing, or we may be intelligent, but on the other hand we may be shy, not very comfortable around people and an average intelligence.  Our traits and more mix and match to make each one of us unique.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned 62 years of living human beings love of conformity.  We try to deny it but our behavior seems to betray us.  Like each snowflake that’s different, God who made us with reason and design made us different.  Let’s look an example of a disciple who was different than Peter for James, he was too old to follow Jesus the way they did and in his leadership position great pressure was put on him not to share his faith that he had in Jesus.  He was called the secret believer for disciple, but he had a task and the step forward at the right time.  One thing we could never do is know the human heart.  People are very outgoing may be fakes and people who are quite maybe the genuine article.

Disciples in Jesus time came in all shapes and sizes and the hard part for us is some of them were unbelievers and some were followers.  I think of John 6:64-69 where there were disciples who no longer followed him.  A disciple is a learner, later these disciples would become Christians, believers.  Believing and faith for salvation certainly was happening during Jesus time. When we look at the John 3:1-15, we clearly see the gospel need no further proof.  There has only been one way of salvation, what they looking towards the cross, or we looking back at the cross, God’s way of salvation was always the same.  Remember it is God who saves us.

When many write about today of what a disciple should be there is a sense of conformity.  But when we look at believers today or in the bible times we see how different the disciples were to one another.  Each one was an individual.  The 12 were called upon a particular task to follow Jesus everywhere he went.  They had the ability to do so.  One thing a younger man can do better than older men is walk and lives out in the outdoors.  There are older men who can do this, but their number decreases as you go long.  I have a friend of Scottish descent who is nearing 80 and I am sure he would give it a go to follow the Lord Jesus as disciples did.  Jesus and the 12 may vote him out after awhile for being so stubborn. Keep walking