Thoughts on 1 Peter - Day 20

                          
                                                    1 Peter 4:11


¹¹ If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

      Once again Peter is raking me over the coals. He said,  he who speaks is to speak as if he is speaking the very words of God.  Now in one sense and probably the way Peter is meaning this is that if I stand in front of people and teach or preach,  I should first of all make sure that what I am teaching is truth.  Is it in accordance with God's Word? Also I should be authoritative because I am speaking as God's man. I shouldn't be timid or apologetic but speak what God has told me to say. My son Brett has been asked to speak this Sunday and is scared to death because as of midweek, God hasn't given him words to speak. That's how serious we should be when speaking or preaching in front of people where they are expecting to hear God's Word.

    But that's not the sense where I blew it. The other sense is if you say something to anyone and you are a Christian,  what you should say is what Jesus would say i.e. WWJS. My words were along the lines of "don't you nurses in Honduras do anything?" Yes, I really said that. The only saving grace was that it was in English,  and unless they are pretending not to understand a word I am saying, I think I am safe. I'm not going to explain why I said it because then I would be trying to justify something that can't be justified.  Why can't it be justified even if it was true (see I couldn't resist)? Because it wasn't the very words of God.  Jesus would have never said that.  Why? Because He was not self centered. He would have been more concerned about the nurse's life than His own. He would have thought, how can I serve the nurses.

    Peter would say that I was not only not speaking God's words but I wasn't functioning in His strength - I was functioning in mine. Amazing how I can be on a mission trip,  be in God's Word,  be constantly in prayer and still slip back into my own strength so easily. How did Jesus do it?  How can I do it.  Will I ever succeed? Good thing I'm not done with Peter yet; maybe he'll tell me.

  Lord, forgive me and help me! Please. I'm desperate.  Amen