Shauna Letellier's Blog

God takes drastic measures to prepare his people for the works he’s prepared for them.

As Christ’s followers, we are his handiwork, his masterpiece, his workmanship. Our beautifully transformed lives are a demonstration of his work. We are proof that he is a masterful artist! He created us in Christ Jesus—which is to say he saved us to follow him–for the purpose of doing the good works he’s prepared for us to do.

Jesus saved Peter because he wanted to, but also because he’d prepared good work for the man and prepared the man for the work.

“Feed my sheep. Take care of my sheep. Tend my lambs.”

It must have sounded hard and weighty. Peter knew himself too well, and as Jesus was telling Peter about the work he’d planned for him to do, Peter turned around and saw John.

John hadn’t denied knowing Jesus. Sure, he may have scattered like the rest of them on the night Jesus was crucified, but at least he’d scrounged up the courage to be standing at the foot of the cross while Jesus died. In fact, while Jesus was dying, he spoke from the cross and entrusted his own mother to John!

In Peter’s estimation, surely John would have been a better shepherd for this little flock of followers, so Peter said, “What about him?”

Haven’t we all asked that question in our own way?

Jesus has called us to follow him in a million different ways through daily works that he’s prepared, and I protest and say, “Eeeks, what about her? Isn’t there someone else better suited for this? Surely, so-and-so would be a better choice?”

The first time I was asked to speak at a retreat I told the director, “Well, I could do it, but there are women who are far better suited for it than I am. Do you want me to get you their information?”

I had a gal’s name rolling around in my head—a woman with tons of speaking and life experience who has adored and followed Jesus faithfully. She can even sing and play the piano at the same time! I can barely walk and chew gum, so What about her?

Have you been presented with a need or an opportunity to follow Jesus in the good works he’s prepared and heard yourself saying, “Wouldn’t she be a better choice?”

Jesus answers our objections, the same way he answered Peter, and I’ll paraphrase verse 22: “If I want her to do something entirely different or even unthinkable, what’s it to ya? You follow me. Get your eyes off someone else and look to me. I will lead you.”

And my friend, who would have been a more experienced teacher, well, she’s in Missouri doing the work God has prepared for her.

John couldn’t do Peter’s Kingdom job because he was going to be doing what God had prepared for him. John’s job was to bear witness to all that Jesus had done and would do. Right here in John 21:24, 60-some years after he’d stood behind Peter and Jesus on that beach, John wrote, “[I am] the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down.” In other words, ‘The guy Peter was hoping would take his place, that was me. But my job was to testify to these things and write them down so that you–dear reader–may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing in him, you’ll have life in his name.’

Jesus had prepared good works for Peter and John. And after Jesus ascended to the Father and sent his Holy Spirit, Peter and John got to work.

On the same day that they received the Holy Spirit, they preached, in various languages, And the flock Peter was commissioned to care for grew by 3,000.

Days later, when Peter and John went to the Temple to pray, they healed a crippled man, which drew a crowd, and they preached again.

Sometimes the good works God has prepared for us are extremely rewarding, and we get to see the God-glorifying results.

But, the longer you follow Jesus in the good works he’s prepared, you will discover there is also a kind of burden that comes with it.

Because every kingdom job has a kingdom burden.

Every Kingdom Job Comes With a Kingdom Burden

Earlier in their ministry, Jesus told them (Luke 12:12-13), “you will be handed over to be tried in synagogues and be put in prison; you will be brought before kings and rulers for my sake.” 

And in John 21, Jesus gives a shocking—even if somewhat veiled–revelation that Peter would eventually be crucified for following Jesus. He would eventually do what he had promised: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33). Eventually, he would.

Within ten years, the apostles would begin to be picked off by whichever ruler they’d offended. James, as in John’s big brother and Peter’s good friend, was first—Herod Agrippa had him beheaded.

Peter must have heard Jesus’s prophecy rattling in his mind, “…when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). He must’ve wondered if he’d be next. When will it be me?

Peter’s Kingdom burden was jail and beatings and a prophecy of martyrdom.

John’s burden was to bear witness for 90 years as each of his friends and brothers were killed–one by one–for following Jesus.

Remember: Jesus saved Peter because he wanted to, but also because he’d prepared good work for the man and prepared the man for the work.  If you are following Jesus, then you have good work to do and you are being prepared to do that work.  

How has God used a failure to prepare you to do the work he’s prepared for you to do?

* A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson, page 17.

Previous Posts in this SeriesWhere to Find the Courage to Continue FollowingHow Does Jesus Prepare us to Continue FollowingWhy Does Jesus Want Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers?What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?

The post How God Prepares People to do the Work He’s Prepared appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

How Does Jesus Give Us the Courage to Continue Following?

Jesus did not promise that following him would be a walk in the park, but he did say that he would always be with us and would show himself to us along the way.

Now, I’ll be honest. On some days, that sounds like a consolation prize. 

Like maybe we thought following Jesus would make things easy and fun, but it turns out we only get the promise that he will be with us and “show himself to us.” 

Jesus Shows Himself to Followers

In John 14, Jesus repeatedly says (with various wording), “If you love me, you will obey me, and I will show myself to you.”

How does Christ show himself to us? Do you have to climb a mountain or go to a retreat? You can. But you don’t have to. I have benefited from and enjoyed retreats, conferences, and groups such as Bible Study Fellowship. Through each of those events, I’ve learned about God and connected with his people.

But most often he “shows himself to me” when I’ve brought him a desperate need from my regular life. 

Like the time he gave me a glimpse of himself through a Cathedral Window cookie. 

Remembering these things stirs affection and worship. That sincere affection makes me want to follow and obey him again.

Jesus explains this phenomenon when he says in John 14:15, “if you love me, you will obey me, and you will know the Spirit of God….”

Again in 14:21, Jesus says, “whoever obeys is the one who loves me…and I will show myself to him.” 

And again in 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching and…God and I will make our home with him.“

I see a glorious cycle here:

God’s lovingkindness for us produces love for God inside us.

Love for God produces obedience in the good works he’s prepared.

Obedience–whether it means you stop disobeying or start obeying him–produces an opportunity to see him. As he “shows himself to us,” we witness his lovingkindness.

Seeing God’s lovingkindness produces love for him. And love for God produces obedience. Obedience produces an opportunity to see and know him.

It’s the life-cycle of your Christian walk where God receives glory, and we receive the blessing of seeing him. 

Jesus Rewards Followers

Knowing Jesus as an intimate friend is the primary and lasting reward of doing the good works he’s prepared! And it propels us toward him.

There may be other rewards—admiration, satisfaction in knowing you helped someone, or even a note of thanks or appreciation. But you can’t count on any of that.

Sometimes our good work seems useless.

Sometimes people don’t admire the good work you do in obedience to Jesus.

You may pour your heart into a job, a project, a ministry, or a child because Christ invited you to do it. You may never receive a whisper of human appreciation.

You may try to help someone by giving them money and find out later they invested it in a “very valuable collector’s edition Beanie Baby” or that they lost it at the casino.

You may feel like those good works are useless or wasted, but when we view these opportunities as a way to follow Jesus into the good works he’s prepared so that we will know him, then none of it is wasted! We ARE following Christ.

Colossians 3:23-24 in the Amplified Versions says, “Whatever you do [whatever your task may be], work from the soul [that is, put in your very best effort], as [something done] for the Lord and not for men, knowing [with all certainty] that it is from the Lord [not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your [greatest] reward. It is the Lord Christ whom you [actually] serve.”

You can’t count on your good work to transform people’s hearts or behavior. Only Jesus can do that.

But you can count on this: When you do the good work God prepared in advance for you to do, you will know Christ! And you will love him more. He is your great reward.

The World Does Not Know Her Name

He called you to follow him, and he has prepared you for a Kingdom job.

To be clear, I’m not describing one single gigantic task. It’s a million little things throughout the course of your regular life.

Maybe you’re not tied to an office or a schedule anymore and you’re available to make a weekly phone call to a friend, schedule coffee, or spend that time praying for someone who’s asked for prayer. Do you know how rare it is to discover a person who is able and willing to give their time? People inside and outside of the church spend millions trying to buy time. Your availability could be one aspect of the good works God has prepared for you to do.

Maybe you’ve raised four kids, and a young single mom moves into the house next door. Do you suppose God might have a good work prepared for you that you can walk in?

Perhaps you’ve struggled with anxiety, depression, or an eating disorder, and a woman in your Bible study or your office hints at a similar struggle. Can you share how Jesus has ministered to you in your struggle?

In 2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT, we read, “God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

In sharing Christ’s work in our own lives, we influence people for Christ.

Years ago, on a radio broadcast, an interviewer asked a well-known Christian woman, “Who is the most influential Christian woman in America?”  She answered, “The world does not know her name.”

I think of her answer every time I visit a small church and see the same women there year, after year, after year.

I marvel at the women who have served, accomplishing tasks that few people notice. Women who meet a need and desperately hope no one embarrasses them by noticing. Women who are doing the good work God prepared to benefit the people they bump into every week.

For example, I think of a widow I know who, despite being injured, raised someone else’s children. One of her greatest joys is taking a meal to anyone sick, injured, grieving, or just plain busy. She doesn’t do it because she’s afraid of what you’ll think if she doesn’t. She gives and gives because a long time ago, she was grieving, she was injured, she was busy.

And the world does not know her name.

I think of a woman who rocks a fussy baby in the church nursery. It’s not her baby, nor her grandbaby. She’s just loving a young mom by loving her child. She wipes congealed breast milk off her shoulder with a paper towel and goes right on patting and consoling so a young mom can have 20 minutes to worship. She will be back next week and next month, and next year because when she was a young single mom, she needed a small window of undistracted time to worship the God who sustained her.

And the world does not know her name.

I think of a woman who married a jerk. A “Christian” jerk. He’s not an abuser, but he’s a jerk who makes physical loneliness seem like paradise. This woman has overlooked a thousand wrongs, turned the other cheek, and turned her eyes upon Jesus. And for her young married friends, who find themselves gasping in the thin air of unmet expectations, spiraling down into disappointment, she’s like a triage nurse. She drags her from the wreckage and urges her on toward Christ—who makes beautiful things out of wreckage and disciples out of jerks.

And the world does not know her name.

These women are broken vessels whose fractured lives allow the light of Christ to shine through. These are women whose good works are “for the Lord” (see Colossians 3:23). None of it is wasted.

Followers Point Out the Holy

Occasionally, we do get to see Christ revealing himself to the people we’ve tried to love. We see him restoring after tragedy or over-filling nets with fish. In our astonishment, we can point to that miracle of transformation and say, “That is his work! That is exactly the kind of thing he does! I recognize it because I’ve seen him do it before!”

Followers of Jesus get to enjoy and point out the holy scenery on our pilgrimage. Ours is not a random path to nowhere. We are following Jesus to a destination.

Because of Jesus, you belong in his kingdom, and that’s where you are headed.

He has invited you to follow. He keeps you as his follower, even after you’ve failed. And he supplies the courage to keep following him toward his holy kingdom by showing himself to you along the way. 

He’s done it repeatedly throughout the centuries. John wrote, “If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). 

Your kingdom job is to enjoy the privilege of telling how Jesus showed himself to you as you followed him, and maybe someone who hears your story will want to follow Jesus too.

Previous Posts in this SeriesHow Does Jesus Prepare us to Continue FollowingWhy Does Jesus Want Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers?What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?

The post Where to Find Courage to Continue Following Jesus appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

In a book titled A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson talks about the difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim as you follow Jesus. Tourists like highlights and quick inspiration. Pilgrims, on the other hand, “spend [their] lives going some place.”* As followers of Jesus, we are going to God, and Jesus is the way (see John 14:6). But it’s not a quick flight. It’s “a long obedience in the same direction.”

As we walk with him, we may stumble over failure or jump into sin, but as pilgrims, we don’t stay long in one place. Our failures are not residences or monuments. To quote William Faulkner, “A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,” while a footprint says, ‘this is where I was when I moved again.'”

Where do we move from here? Where are we headed, and how do we get there?

You won’t be surprised to hear that Jesus knows how to get there. He is THE WAY, after all, and he’s got travel plans for you—things for you to see and do along the way as you follow him.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In John 21, Jesus commissions Peter for the work he’d prepared for him. And Jesus had all this in mind BEFORE the crucifixion, before the denial.

In Luke 22:32, Jesus said to Peter, “I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.” (NLT)

Peter would strengthen his brothers by following Jesus into the Kingdom job God had prepared. He would go on to be a kind of earthly shepherd for Christ’s sheep—He would lead Christ’s followers toward Christ’s Kingdom just as Jesus had planned.

He keeps you because you belong to him, but he loves you too much to settle for a static, sterile friendship with you.  And he desires to develop a deep friendship by inviting you to follow him into the next chapter–the purposes for which he saved you and kept you. 

That was Christ’s plan for Peter. He chose Peter and kept him for a purpose in Christ’s Kingdom: to “Feed my sheep, and take care of my lambs.” And in that Kingdom job, Jesus would continue to show Peter, and everyone around him, his love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, restoration. That in-the-flesh demonstration of God’s character would cause people to flock to Peter, who would then point them toward Jesus. 

Jesus called Peter on purpose to be a follower, and he kept him as a follower for a purpose. 

Jesus called Peter on purpose to be a follower, and he kept him as a follower for a purpose. 

God Transforms Our Failures into Preparation

Often, the works God has prepared for us grow out of our most crushing failures and devastating circumstances. After repentance and restoration, it’s as if God redeems even the failure and uses it to show his love and grace to others.

Peter would be able to strengthen his brothers because he had been strengthened by Christ. 

He would be a compassionate shepherd like Jesus because he’d experienced the compassionate shepherding of Christ. 

In my own life, I’ve seen how Jesus has delivered me from transactional faith. I don’t have to work to fill a non-existent spiritual bank account in order to ask God for his help. After a devastating season of crushing shame and failure, he restored me with the assurance that his grace cannot be earned by anything I do, and it can’t be lost by anything I don’t do. 

During those rugged times, God mended my heart through some of the most familiar Bible stories I knew. I’d heard them told hundreds of times throughout my life, and yet as I read them again, it  was as if I was seeing them for the first time.

When our foster girls left our home and my three boys went back to school, I hardly knew what to do with myself. For a decade, I’d given my days to a mission on the front lines of motherhood. A daily battle against snotty noses, sticky floors, and insatiable cravings for apple juice; for teaching, correcting, and scheduling one activity to the next.

But with the children at school, I found myself reading books besides Hop on Pop.

One day, as I was reading the story of Peter’s first great catch, the truths of the gospel came alive to me in a fresh way. The scene played in my mind with incredible detail, and the gospel parallels astonished me. I thought, “I’ve got to type this out simply to unload everything in my brain!” So, I sat down at my computer, and I retold that familiar Bible story to myself in writing.

When I was done, I thought, “Wow. That felt like worship.” And I wanted to do it again.

Have you ever had that feeling of worship outside of a church building? 

Have you marveled that God makes a baby’s toenails so tiny and sharp? Have you stared at the swishing tail of the beta fish that lives on your kitchen counter, and thanked God for thinking to create it? When you bury your hands in the garden do you marvel that God makes color and fragrance and food come out of the ground? 

Every good and perfect gift comes from God, and when we recognize that, we worship.

My computer desk suddenly felt like a little sanctuary. Writing felt like worship.

But with such an intense season of mothering in the not-so-distant past, sitting to write felt like a ridiculous indulgence. Other women in our agricultural community were working hard delivering calves in the middle of the freezing night! My dear friend was running a demanding and rewarding business. Other women I knew were in the throes of mothering medically fragile newborns or homeschooling multiple children.

It felt wrong to sit and think and type. And I wondered if this private means of worship was just a royal waste of time. Maybe I was just lazy.

Worship Behind the Lines

Around that time, I was given an article by one of my favorite authors, Ken Gire. In it, he shared insight from the beautiful last scene of the old movie Camelot, and it completely reoriented my perspective about the good works God prepared for me.

I read his piece and learned that King Arthur of Camelot was a legendary gentleman and hero who inspired his Knights of the Round Table to acts of bravery and kindness. But in the final scene of the movie, King Arthur has been betrayed by his queen and a trusted knight. King Arthur’s legacy, and the brave work of his Knights of the Round Table, seem doomed.

As he ponders the fate of all he loves, King Arthur hears rustling in a nearby tent and discovers a zealous young boy in hiding. Thinking he might be an assassin, King Arthur questions the boy.

His name is Tom, and he adores the Knights of the Round Table. He knows every story of their feats of bravery, and he himself intends to become a knight. He’s very good with a bow, he explains.

Young Tom is the medieval version of a superfan who believes his dream of joining the knights on the front lines is about to be realized.

King Arthur knows the impending fate of his legacy, and suddenly he sees a way to keep it alive.  

King Arthur knights the boy on the spot and gives him his first mission: Ken Gire recounts the scene:

“…listen to me, Tom of Warwick. You will not fight in the battle, do you hear?”

Suddenly disappointed, the boy replies: “Yes, Milord.”

“You will run behind the lines and hide in a tent till it is over. Then you will return to your home in England. Alive. To grow up and grow old. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Milord,” says Tom.

“And for as long as you live you will remember what I, the King, tell you; and you will do as I command.”

Tom’s eyes come alive: “Yes, Milord.”

Reflections on the Movies, Ken Gire

Then the King commissions Tom to tell every story he knows to everyone he sees about the chivalrous brave knights and their good King.

And so the boy obeys his King. He runs behind the front lines and lives. And he sends the stories of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table to future generations.

The scene resonated with me because I was no longer required in a “front lines” position of foster care or constant motherhood demands. But to simply run behind the lines and write stories felt cowardly. Unproductive.

In Ken Gire’s reflection on this scene, he writes:

“Whether running behind the lines is an act of cowardice or heroism depends, I think, on several things.  Whose command sent us running.  What stories we write once we stop.  And why we write them.” (Reflections on the Movies, Ken Gire).

God Commissions Whom He Chooses

Ken’s wise and beautiful words showed me that the King of Kings can commission whomever and whatever He pleases. If it pleased Him, He could even commission me to retell the stories of how he had comforted and rescued me. Sharing them with others would bring him glory, and incredibly, He allowed me to worship Him through it.

Has there been some front-line battle in your life that God has delivered you from? 

Perhaps you’ve come through a front-line battle with grief and loss? Maybe you’ve survived a season of dark depression? Do you have a testimony of being found by Jesus when you were so very lost? How has God grown hope and beauty from what appeared to be an ash heap?

Who can you tell? What has the King of Kings commissioned you to do? Does it feel…unexpected? If so, remember that God often chooses to glorify himself in unexpected ways.

Previous Posts in this SeriesWhy Does Jesus Want Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers?What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?

The post How Does Jesus Prepare Us to Continue Following? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

In his book, Inexpressible, Michael Card explores the multifaceted definition of the Hebrew word for God’s grace or loving-kindness. In Hebrew, it’s hesed. Card says God’s hesed “has an over-the-top quality about it.” After ten years of studying the 169 words and phrases used to translate hesed, Card defines it this way: “Hesed: When the one from whom you have the right to expect nothing gives you everything.”

Grace is what Jesus offers us when he invites us to follow him. Grace is what he offers when we fail and repent. Grace is what draws us – propels us – toward him after we’ve been restored.

The overwhelming relief and undeserved favor of God is what made Peter throw himself into the water. And when he got to shore, he found that Jesus, just like the father of the prodigal son, had prepared a meal.

While we are wondering where in the world Jesus is, and what he’s doing, and whether or not he has any use for us, Jesus is collecting the wood for the fire, striking the flint to light it, and cooking the fish and bread so it’s ready when we arrive. He is always ready to fellowship with his followers.

Does that shock you? We might have expected him to say something like, “Now that I’ve helped you with your fishing predicament, why don’t you guys cook up some of those fish for me.”

Instead, it went something like this:

Jesus Fellowships With Failures

Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught (wink, wink) and come and have breakfast.”

Peter raised an eyebrow at Him. The fish we just caught? He jogged to the boat and climbed on board to help drag the bulging net out of the water.

They heaved fish and nets, ropes, and baskets onto the shore to begin the work of untangling fins and sorting fish by species and size.

Peter draped the net from the bow to stern to mark the repairs. He found no rips. No overstrained knots. No place for fish to escape. None had been lost.

“153 keepers!” Andrew shouted. Peter looked up to see him drop the last basket on the beach.

Jesus waved them over. “Come and have breakfast.”

As they stood around the crackling fire, they all saw the unmistakable scar on the hand that stirred the coals and turned the roasting fish. And no one dared ask Him, “Who are you?” 

They finally knew. Then, just like on the night they had deserted him, Jesus served them. He took the bread and gave it to them, and he did the same with the fish. (See John 21:13)

I kind of want the story to end here. “And they all lived happily ever after.” So it’s a little surprising that while they’re brushing crumbs from their beards and tossing fishbones into the fire, Jesus looks around the circle of men, and, in front of everyone, he asks Peter, “Do you truly love me more than these other disciples?”

His question surprises me because it seems that Jesus is picking at the scab of a wound he’s already healed.  

But, in the same way he pointed to their inadequacy before he filled their nets with fish, once again, he points to their inadequate loyalty because he’s about to blow their minds again.

Two Types of Love

When Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” he used the Greek word agapao for love. “Peter, do you agapao me?”

Agapao is the kind of love God showed to us. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love [agapao] for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Agapao is an unconditional kind of love. It’s a decision of the will—which is to say, you choose this kind of love. Agapao is expressed through action, regardless of whether the loved one is lovely or lovable. It’s love that is expressed by self-giving and self-sacrificing, even if it hurts the giver. 

But there is another kind of love, which is translated from the Greek word phileo. Phileo is a love that springs from emotion and affectionate feelings. It’s an emotional response to a sense of pleasure. 

Think back to one of the best times you’ve had with a friend. Maybe you said, “That was so much fun. I just love you!” That’s phileo love. Interestingly, God also has phileo love toward us. John 16:27 says, “the father phileos us because we phileo Jesus.” Put another way, God has an affectionate delight toward his followers, who have an affectionate delight toward his son Jesus.

So when Jesus asked, “Peter do you agapao me?” Peter understood him to be asking, “Do you love me the way I have loved you—unconditionally, with a kind of love that sacrifices itself?”

The answer, as they all knew, was no. None of them had loved Jesus with agapao kind of love. Peter had not sacrificed himself, though he had promised to. He knew it would be ridiculous and dishonest to claim that he did.

But he honestly did phileo Jesus. He had tender affection for Christ who found him, forgave him, and was at that moment fellowshipping with him. So Peter answered in humble honesty, “Yes. You know I phileo you like a best friend.”

Jesus asked a second time, “Do you agapao me?” and Peter, determined to answer honestly, replied the same. “Yes. You know I phileo you like a friend.”

But when Jesus asked a third time, he changed the question, and it grieved Peter. He said, “Peter, do you phileo me like a friend?”

Perhaps Peter felt as though Jesus had to sink to his level, but at least this time, Peter had been honest about it. In Peter’s distress, he answered Jesus: “Lord, you know all things.” You know what I did, where I fled, how I wept. You know that is not the kind of love You have for me. Your love is without limits and without fear. You know that I only phileo you with the tender affection of a best friend.

And if it were anyone besides Jesus, we might expect to read, “Oh well, then never mind. I need someone who’s more committed.”

But it is Jesus, and it’s as if Jesus answers Peter’s confession of phileo love, “Peter, even if you don’t agapao me yet with a self-sacrificing kind of love, your tender phileo affection is still precious to me. Follow me, and I will teach you how to love as I’ve loved you.”

Do you sometimes feel like you’ve messed up too much to be of any use to God? Or that your love for him is second-rate, and your faith is weak?

Maybe you feel like your family situation lands you on the Christian B-team.

Maybe there’s something in your recent or distant past that you can’t bear to reveal because you fear that if anyone knew, they would reject you. Avoid you. Dismiss you out of hand. And do you know what? People might, but Jesus Christ will not.

In John 6:37 in the Amplified version, we hear Jesus say, “The one who comes to Me I will most certainly not cast out, [I will never, never reject anyone who follows Me]”  (John 6:37 AMP).

Peter’s honest assessment of his love for Christ didn’t change Christ’s hold on him. 

The same is true for us. 

Jesus Delights in Choosing Failures

Jesus is still holding on. He still chooses you. He invited you to follow him because he wanted you. He invades your darkest moment because he wants you to know he’s keeping you, and he does all of that because he WANTS TO!

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Ephesians 1:4, NLT

Do you believe that? Do you know that he is not rolling his eyes when you come to him? Jesus assured you that when you approach God in prayers of repentance, questioning, confession, or praise, he is not plugging his ears and closing his eyes like a toddler who doesn’t want to listen. He keeps you because he wants to, and it gives him great pleasure.

But he also keeps you because you’re his. You belong to him.  

The Waiting is the memoir of Minka, a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape in 1928 at the age of 16. As was the custom at that time, she was sent to a home for girls “in her situation” where she delivered a healthy baby girl she named Betty Jane and relinquished her parental rights. 

For the next eight decades, she would not and could not forget her little Betty Jane.

When Minka was 93 years old, she received a call from a woman who claimed to be her daughter. As it turns out, it was Betty Jane, asking to meet her. Do you think Minka wanted to see Betty Jane because she suspected some potential? Do you suppose she wanted to see Betty Jane because she’d accomplished great things or had few failures?

She wanted to be with Betty Jane because Betty Jane was hers.

Jesus keeps you because he wants to, and it gives him great pleasure. He invited you to follow him because he made you. He invades your darkest moment because he wants you to know he’s keeping you, and he does all of that because it’s what he wants to do and it delights him.

Previous Posts in this SeriesWhat Does Jesus Do for Followers Who Fail?What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers?What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?

The post Why Does Jesus Want Followers Who Fail? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

I was watching Olympic track events in 2021 when, in one evening, two British runners were disqualified for false starts. Normally athletes train for four years before their Olympic performance. This year, because of the pandemic, they had five! And in a split second, the runner does what he’s not supposed to do, and it’s all over. There’s no mulligan or just joking or “Can I get a do-over?” He’s just done and disqualified.

And I’m just betting that’s how Peter felt after Jesus died.

In the gospel of Luke, we read that Peter panicked, lied and said, “Man, I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” 

“As he was speaking, a rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” 62 And Peter went outside and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:60-61).

Peter spent the most miserable Saturday of his life in hiding. While folks in Jerusalem were celebrating Passover with their families, Peter was weeping bitterly.

He couldn’t undo his denial, and surely he wondered if he’d been disqualified. 

True followers of Jesus sometimes fail. 

Have you experienced the crushing weight of personal failure? The kind of brokenness where you feel the ground beneath you crumbling away, and you can’t undo the damage.

Maybe it was the moment you realized your marriage was over.Maybe it was that life-altering announcement from one of your kids.Maybe it was that first Monday morning you didn’t go to work because you no longer had a job.Maybe you’ve spun a web of polite little lies that didn’t hurt anyone, but now you’re the one stuck in the web.

Motherhood is the context where I experienced the darkest and most devastating sense of my own failure.  And yet, God used motherhood and foster parenting to teach me about his goodness through my failures.

Followers Fear Disqualification

After 16 months our little foster girls were reunited with their family.

When we received a message a month later asking us to foster again, I was weary and worried. I didn’t think I could do it again, and I went to bed that night with the heaviest sense of condemnation and failure I have ever experienced.

We had gone into foster care believing it was how God wanted us to show his love. I had verses to prove it was the right thing to do: John 13:34 “Everyone will know you as my followers if you demonstrate your love to others” (VOICE), and James 1:27 “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress” (NLT).

I tried to conjure up the same kind of fist-pumping courage that I’d had two years earlier as a first-time foster parent. But no amount of verse-quoting could move me back to that confident place of Christian usefulness I had declared. I was terrified to foster again.

From the outside looking in, it seemed the good and right thing to do. I wanted to do the right thing.  And I worried, if becoming foster parents had been God’s best before, would it be wrong to not do it again? 

But, I was scared that God would not strengthen me for the task. I was afraid he would allow it to be too hard. I felt broken, and I was afraid I would break further or break others. I wanted it all to be easy and fun, but I knew that wasn’t always God’s best plan.

C.S. Lewis once wrote in a letter, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” * 

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be

C.S. Lewis

Not only was I unsure of how painful God’s best would be, I wasn’t even sure what God’s best was in this situation. 

As I lay in bed that night, I felt assaulted by condemnation. When I closed my eyes, it was as if I was seeing a news ticker tape scrolling across the screen of my mind with accusations against me: “What kind of mom are you? Don’t you care about kids? What are people going to think of you? You’ve ruined your witness for Christ.”

The weight of condemnation felt suffocating. Physically, I was having a hard time catching my breath, but the ticker tape kept scrolling, “Are you even a Christian? You should just withdraw yourself from church right now. You are disqualified.”

I believe we can trace every kind of failure, sin, and shame down to the tangly root of unbelief. I effectively call God a liar when I do not believe what God has said about himself. 

In my case, I falsely believed God was disappointed and surprised by my weakness. But the truth was that he has said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

I believed my limitations were hindering God’s plan. But God’s truth said, “My plan can’t be thwarted.” (See Job 42:2)

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27) 

The lies we believe cause us to fall into sin and wallow in shame. They bring consequences and condemnation.

Jesus’s Approach After Our Failure

What does Jesus do for his followers who’ve failed, who feel desolate, broken, ashamed, and just want to exit their own lives? 

Well, what did Jesus do for Peter?

When Peter’s eyes were still swollen and his head was still aching, the resurrected Jesus came and found him.

Peter’s devastating and miserable Saturday was followed by Resurrection Sunday. At some point on Sunday–after Peter and John had sprinted to the empty tomb that morning and before the two Emmaus disciples ate with Jesus that evening—sometime during that day, Jesus appeared to Peter (Luke 24:34, 1 Corinthians 15:5).

We aren’t privy to a single word of that conversation. But based on Peter’s impulsive dive when he saw Jesus on the beach, we can infer a few things about their first post-resurrection private meeting.

First, Jesus initiated it by appearing to Peter. We’re not told that Peter ran all over Jerusalem looking for Christ, who he couldn’t find in the tomb. This is a man who saw two dead soldiers lying outside an open grave that only held soiled burial cloths. He wasn’t looking for Jesus. Scripture says twice, Jesus appeared to Peter. 

Second, when Peter saw him, he likely fell to his knees. The first time Jesus revealed his power in a sinking boat full of fish, his holiness dropped Peter to his knees in a deep awareness of his own sin and shame. Remember what Peter said? “Go away from me. I am a sinful man.” When Jesus, after his resurrection, appeared to Peter privately, I’m guessing he fell to the ground in sorrow and repentance. I wonder if the plea tumbling from Peter’s heart came from Psalm 51: 

Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love. 

Because of your great mercy wipe away my sins!

Wash away all my evil and make me clean from my sin!

I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.

I have sinned against you—only against you—and done what you consider evil.

So you are right in judging me; you are justified in condemning me.

Psalm 51:1-4, GNT

That’s a poem of repentance. Turning toward God, and turning away from sin.

And third, we don’t know what Jesus said in that moment, but I wonder if any words were exchanged at all. Remember, as soon as the rooster crowed, Jesus looked at Peter, and Peter wept. No words. 

The fact that Jesus was presently standing before Peter, alive, might have said it all. I have triumphed over sin and death in order to find and forgive you because you’re mine. 

I imagine they hugged and cried. We don’t know for sure. 

But we do know that Peter knew he was completely restored because a few weeks later, when he saw Jesus stoking a fire on the shore, Peter threw himself in the lake and did the first-century crawl stroke with his cloak wrapped around him.

Followers Respond to Jesus’ Approach

When you and I are weakened or crushed by the weight of sin and shame, Jesus invites us to unburden ourselves in repentance. As 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We turn away from unbelief. 

You might say it out loud to God, “I didn’t believe you, and I am painfully aware that I was wrong.” And after you’ve turned away from the lie that showed up in your behavior, turn toward God and believe the truth that he is faithful to you and that he is just to forgive–which is to say, he is right and fair when he cleanses you. 

And do you know why it’s fair and just? Because Jesus took your punishment. Justice has been served because Jesus served the sentence for you. It is finished.

*Letters of C. S. Lewis (29 April 1959), para. 1, p. 285 — as reported in The Quotable Lewis (1989), p. 469)

The post What Does Jesus Do for Followers Who Fail? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

The apostle Peter followed Jesus around Israel for three years. He walked with him, learned from him, and witnessed mind-blowing miracles by which Jesus declared himself to be the rescuing King God had promised.

Each miracle—opening the eyes of the blind, making a paralyzed man walk, feeding thousands of people by multiplying a few loaves of bread—were glimpses of the kind of kingdom Jesus would establish for his followers. A kingdom of wholeness, abundance, and holiness. And that was exactly the kind of kingdom Peter wanted to live in! 

Based on the way Jesus kept choosing Peter, James, and John to be up close and included in private meetings, it probably seemed to Peter that he was well on his way to playing an important role in Jesus’s earthly ministry and kingdom.

So, when Jesus began to reveal that he came to save them by dying for them, Peter got offended because he didn’t understand.

Followers Fail, Doubt, and Misunderstand

In the final moments of following Jesus on earth, Peter found himself at odds with Jesus, whom he’d been so determined to follow.

At the last supper, Jesus told his followers, “You will all fall away.” But Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:27–29).

Jesus said, “This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter said, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” (Matthew 26:34–35).

In the space of a few hours, Peter would be standing by a fire, and his declarations of loyalty would melt into three panicked denials. 

From sword-swinging valor to cursing and terrified disowning of his king and friend, Peter, a true follower of Jesus, proved unable to keep his promises of loyalty when it mattered most. So “He went out and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:62)

As you’ve followed Jesus throughout your life, have you been there? Devastatingly ashamed?

Have you asked yourself, “How could I have done that? How could I have done that again? Am I even a Christian?”

I have been there, and my tendency is the same as Peter’s. I want to flee! I want to get as far away from the evidence of my failure as I can.

I have often wept bitterly. I’ve cried in embarrassment because I ought to know better. I’ve buried my head in shame because shouldn’t I have this sin whipped by now? And I’ve bawled my eyes out in despair because I wonder if this time, I’ve finally ruined God’s plan for my loved ones or me.

One of those times was in the spring of 2012. At the time, our boys were 8, 7, and 5, and we had two little foster girls, ages 3 and 2. 

As I looked around my life, I was failing at all the things that were most important to God and to me. Marriage, parenting, foster-parenting, and even my walk with Jesus—everything seemed to be crumbling.

Kurt and I were merely existing in the same house. When I took time to read my Bible and pray, I spent more time crying than reading or praying. I was struggling with sins of bitterness, distrusting God, and being harsh and impatient with my family.

I was parenting like I was a machine, and our kids were five little widgets I had to service. Wake, feed, transport, bathe. It was like our home had become an institutional parenting operation with gaping holes where loving discipline and nurture should have been.

I’d begun to wonder, “Am I even a Christian? Shouldn’t this all be easier because I’m following Jesus?”

I had been begging God for months to either change my heart or my circumstances.

One particular night I prayed: God, why am I still struggling with these things?! Don’t you see how badly this is going? Do you know how wrung out I am? Do you care that these kids are dying for individual attention? I can’t do it because I have a logistics problem…a 1 to 5 ratio! The only mother-child activity I could possibly manage is to have them “help” while I cook. But I don’t have the patience for it, and the boys are interested in fishing, not cooking! 

There was no answer, and I went to bed in tears. Why couldn’t I get this figured out?! 

The next day was more of the same, robotic parenting and unloving responses. The gaping holes of individual attention were still begging to be filled.

No voice from heaven.

No overwhelming sense of peace. 

No change in circumstances.

No change of heart.

Jesus Points Out Our Need

I wonder if that’s how Peter felt when we find him in John 21. After Jesus had died and risen, he instructed his disciples to meet him in Galilee, and then he disappeared.

If I had to retell the story of John 21:1-9, I’d tell it like this:

Peter flung his net over the lake and heard it hiss as it sank. He and John drug it back in without speaking. Fishing came back to him as naturally as breathing.

Three years ago, he’d left this boat in a pile of fish and walked away to follow Jesus. And every unpredictable moment of the past three years had culminated in the strangest, most horrible, and fascinating week of his life.

He shook his head remembering. Loyal to the end was his plan. In his fast-talking, fast-acting efforts to be the rock Jesus had called him, he’d vowed to die with Jesus. Instead, he had denied and deserted Him, and Jesus alone had died.

Then, incredibly, He came back to life.

Peter looked around the boat draping the empty net over his arm. James and Andrew worked in rhythm. Thomas and Nathaniel were at the oars, and the others dozed in the bow.

The last orange glow of the evening diminished into darkness, and Peter cast out his net again.

He hoped fishing would ease his mind, and he hadn’t even had to convince the others to come along. They were just waiting, after all. Waiting for Jesus to meet them in Galilee, as he said he would. But when? And where was he now? What was taking so long?

It was a dreary but familiar rhythm. The sinkers slapped the water, and the hissing net sunk. Ropes scraped over the sides of the boat, and Peter and John pulled up the net tangled with weeds, dripping with mud, empty of fish. He shoved down his frustration. Waiting. Wondering. Working.

Hour after hour. All night long.

The sun fanned out pink on the horizon and gave just enough light to see the outline of a man on the shore. The smoke from his fire wafted onto the lake and reminded Peter of his hunger. Salt in the wound of a night with no fish.

They were tired, sore, and hungry, and they decided to call it a night. When they were still 100 yards out, the man on shore called out to them.

“Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

A night of work with nothing to show, and now they were forced to admit it.

No fish.

No breakfast. 

No income.

No idea where Jesus was. 

They called back to the man on the shore, “No.” 

I find it instructive that throughout the gospels, and in my own life, when Jesus wants to reveal himself and show his power to his followers, he often points out their need. And it sometimes sounds harsh.

For example, when 5,000 people on a remote hillside needed food, Jesus said to the disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Incredulous, the disciples replied, “We have only five loaves and two fish” (see Luke 9:13). 

To the crippled man who’d lain by the temple pool for 38 years, Jesus said, “Do you want to get well?” and the man essentially answered, “I can’t! I have no one to put me into the healing waters” (see John 5:7).

And to his followers who’d been fishing while waiting for him, Jesus asked, “Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

In my own life, Jesus often makes me acutely aware of my own desperate need so that when he goes to work in my regular surroundings, I’ll know it was him.

Jesus Fills our Gaping Holes

The evening after my desperate complaining prayer for help with my parenting, I put three of my five kids in bed. I was ready to clock out when my eight-year-old brought me a magazine with 65 full-color pages of perfectly decorated treats and said, “Mom, can we make something out of here?”

I was tired, and I had no desire or patience to start an activity. Plus, it was a Christmas magazine, and I knew every recipe in there called for peppermint oil or crushed candy canes, and in April, I had none of that on hand.

So I said, “I don’t have the right ingredients for any of those recipes.”

But he didn’t give up. “Can you just check?”

I flipped through the pages and noticed a recipe with only four ingredients. I had all of them on hand—including a half-bag of pastel mini marshmallows left over from a craft. And, it was a no-bake recipe.

I figured it wouldn’t take too long, so we went to the kitchen and had a rare and uninterrupted 20 minutes of Christmas “baking” in April.

We mixed melted chocolate chips and butter with the pastel marshmallows, rolled it into a log, and refrigerated it. When we sliced them the next morning, each cookie looked like a multicolored mosaic pane, held together by chocolate. 

I served him one of our little treats for breakfast, and since I’d never seen them before, I dug up the magazine and pressed it open to find out what they were called.

They were called Cathedral Windows.

Through a four-ingredient, no-bake recipe, Jesus had filled that gaping hole of need with a cathedral window.

Not only had he answered my prayer for one-on-one time with my needy son, but he had also done it according to the schedule he knew I had to keep. He acknowledged my veiled complaint about cooking with a no-bake recipe. More shocking, he answered my questions:

“Yes. I see. I hear. I know, and I care.”

In a way, it was like a recurring refrain of Jesus saying, “Even now, I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself.”

When we are desperate, God stands ready to strengthen his followers with his presence, his loving attention, and a revelation of himself that proves he is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

He fills gaping holes with cathedral windows and empty nets with fish.

With bedhead, tired-face, and chocolate at the corners of his mouth, he displays his “breakfast.”Jesus’ Generous Gift to His Followers

The man on the shore called out again, and Peter asked, “What did he say?” 

John answered, “He said to cast on the right side to find some fish.”

The rest of the disciples stopped fiddling with nets and oars, ropes and sails. John and Peter eased themselves and the net to the other side. The boat shifted, dipping low with their weight. 

In one orchestrated motion, they flung the net. Once again, it hit the water like a smattering of rain, then went silent.

In unison, they pulled on the ropes.

The net seemed stuck.

Peter held the rope too loosely, and two feet of it scraped through his hands, leaving a bloody burn before he got a grip. He and John braced themselves against the weight of the net and looked at each other. Andrew and James and the others dropped their gear and scrambled over benches and oars to help.

The seven of them pulled, and the boat lurched to that side. The water’s surface shattered with the splashing of silver tails and fins.

John and Peter held the ropes and looked at the shore. Then John said, “It is the Lord!”

Peter thrust the ropes at James, grabbed his cloak from the mast, wriggled it over his head, and dove in.

Peter had been here before. Straining at the ropes of a catch he couldn’t bring in. It was a visual demonstration of God’s grace that bookended his life of following Jesus: a net so full of what he had been working for that he could not contain it.

It had taken years of failure and misunderstanding for Peter to get it, but Jesus’s message had always been the same: I will generously give you what you cannot earn or deserve. I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. I will declare you holy.

Peter needed what only Jesus could give. And so do you and I.

Even if you’ve been following Jesus for years, you still don’t have to earn his forgiveness and grace. We must simply receive what he lavishes on us by whatever means he chooses.

In the setting that was most familiar to Peter, Jesus pointed out his need. Then Jesus filled the empty nets with fish…again…so that Peter and the other disciples would know—without a doubt—Jesus would continue to do for them what they could not do for themselves.

In your most desperate and discouraging circumstances, he is present and attentive, even if you don’t recognize him at first. He will provide, but he often does it in surprising ways so that you’ll know it was him.

The post What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

Years ago, late-night comedian Jay Leno used to do a segment he called “Jay Walking.” He’d walk around New York City and ask the “man on the street” random questions – questions the average person should be able to answer like, “In what month do we vote for President?” or “Who is the Vice President of the United States?”

Leno’s audience would laugh and roll their eyes while grown-up American citizens searched their memories for the correct answer that they knew they should know!

Kurt and I used to watch it and sometimes we’d roll our eyes thinking, “Good grief, how do you not know who the Vice President is?!”  Other times, we’d cringe in embarrassment because we were just as ignorant. Like this question: Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”? We’d shrug and feel stupid together because apparently, we hadn’t paid attention in history, and we weren’t willing to get up and Google it.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

If I were to ask the average person on the street, “How do I follow Jesus?” or “What does it mean to follow Jesus?” we would get a variety of answers. People might say something like, “It means you have to go to church a lot,” or “You can’t do certain things.”

If I asked a more knowledgeable person, they might say, “It means you’re supposed to be kind to everyone and follow The Golden Rule like Jesus did.”

But If I asked a Bible-believing woman, who truly ought to know the answer, who by definition should be living the answer, what would she say? How would I answer that? How would you?

Followers are Everyday People

The apostle John tells a story about his good friend Peter (John 21), who followed Jesus right through the end of his life. Peter’s biography gives us a picture of what following Jesus looks like, what it means, and how it’s done.

But in order to understand John’s account and the implications of following Jesus, we need to hear the prologue to Peter’s story, which begins in Luke 5.

Peter’s Growing-Up Years

If we had to describe Peter’s growing-up years in modern terms, we might say he went to a parochial school. He probably learned some math, but more than addition and subtraction, five-year-old Peter and his brothers and cousins learned the first five books of the Old Testament. And by the time they were teenagers, they’d probably memorized most of it…or at least they were supposed to have memorized it. Think Awana on steroids.

After school, Peter and his brother Andrew helped their dad run the family business. They apprenticed as fishermen under their father, and while it might have been tough to corral them when they were little–scampering about the boat and too weak to handle the oars–when they grew up, they multiplied their father’s workforce and income capacity.

They were probably good boys, but as far as their Jewish teachers were concerned, they weren’t cream-of-the-crop. To advance to what was essentially secondary education, students had to be chosen. And Peter wasn’t. So he went to work with his father to earn a living and provide for his family like any God-fearing, Jewish man ought to do.

He worked the night shift, and every evening they shoved off from the shore and fished until they had enough to eat and sell the next morning.

Peter was doing what was expected of him, showing up, putting one foot in front of the other, believing what he was supposed to believe. 

After a long night of work, doing the job he knew best, Peter had come up empty, with nothing to show for all his hard work.

Can you imagine the monotony and discouragement Peter might have felt? Maybe you’re at a similar juncture in your own life. You believe in God, know about Jesus, you try to follow the Golden Rule, but you’re coming up empty.

I’ve been there.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say I grew up like Peter, but in a way, I can identify with him. I didn’t go to private school, but I went to Sunday School, Sunday morning church, Sunday night church, Wednesday church, Vacation Bible School, Summer Bible Camp, high school Bible study.

I didn’t memorize the Old Testament, but I graduated with a double major in Human Development and Biblical Studies.

Even after all that education, I subconsciously operated under the mantra, “If you work hard and do nice things for God, then he will do nice things for you.”

No one ever laid it out for me like that, but I viewed my relationship with God like a divine checking account.

So I subconsciously devised a strategy wherein I would show up and do the right thing. I would make steady deposits into my account with God –read my Bible, pray, encourage a friend– then when I arbitrarily determined I had made enough deposits, I granted myself permission to make a withdrawal. Enough “funds” in my account with God meant I had earned the right to make a request.

And let me tell you, in the early days, it wasn’t anything too spiritual. I’d ask for God’s help on a test I hadn’t studied for. I’d ask Him to help me get to my violin lesson on time when I’d spent too much time socializing after school. I even asked Him to make handsome boys like me.

So off I’d go to do those good things–to make deposits and earn the right to ask God a favor.

If something went wrong for me —I did poorly on a test or the handsome boy wasn’t interested— I figured I probably deserved it because I had overdrawn my account. Insufficient funds! 

Then there were those occasions when I decided to sin, because sometimes sin seems fun, and sometimes it seems like the only option. I’d try to make it up to God by doing more good things, making more deposits to pay back my sin debt.

I mean, I knew he loved me, but I was pretty sure the way to stay in his good graces and make him like me was to do nice things…and to make up for my sin by doing more nice things.

Maintaining my account by making “deposits” became my goal. But none of it was motivated by my love for God, although I would have told you at the time that it was. In reality, all my good-deed “deposits” were fueled by my love for me.

It was my way to get what I wanted from God.

Followers Fail

This wildly distorted strategy followed me into my marriage and motherhood. I got super irritated when the big and little people in my home and life didn’t adhere to my good-deeds deposit strategy. I felt their behavior was a reflection of my performance in my role as a wife and mom. And somehow, I felt like I had to make up for not only my sin but theirs too! Since I was sleep-deprived and always had multiple kids in tow, my opportunities for “making up for my sin” were limited.

How could I ask God to do nice things for me if I didn’t have time or energy to do nice things for him? In my mind, everything depended on me. And that led to a life of constant, low-grade panic.

I was thrashing around trying to earn an answered prayer, to prove I was a good Christian, loving wife, fun mom, nurturing foster parent, but I was failing on every front. The emotional and relational wreckage was everywhere I looked.

I supposed my account was empty, and I didn’t have one shred of spiritual, emotional, or physical energy to fill it back up. 

One ordinary Sunday afternoon, I put my five kids down for a nap (at that time, we had our three boys and two little foster girls. They were ages 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7). When they were down, I collapsed into my chair and cried alone for the next two hours. My only prayer was, “God, help.”

When I was finally out of energy to earn approval and favor from God, he began to teach me that I didn’t have to.

All that time, I kept coming back to my Bible, looking for the key that would make it all better. Maybe I just wasn’t working hard enough to find it, but if I stayed with it and kept searching, maybe God would reluctantly give up the key, and I could unlock the thing that would fix it all.

But he didn’t lead me to a key. He led me to a story. The story of Peter’s first great catch of fish in Luke chapter 5, and I saw myself in Peter–working hard and coming up empty.

For Peter, it was the morning after a long and disappointing night of work. He and his brother Andrew had nothing but a heap of torn and damaged nets to show for their efforts.

Just down the shore, Jesus was teaching, and as the crowd grew and pressed in to hear him, they nudged him toward the water. The lake lapped at his sandals and the hem of his robe, so he climbed into Peter’s boat and asked him to put out into the water where the acoustics were better, and the people could see.

As I read the story, I could see the people straining to hear Jesus over the sounds of professional fishermen and gulls squawking for leftovers. But Peter was in the boat with Jesus, and he heard exactly what Jesus was saying.

When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Peter, “Put the boat out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4).

I imagine Peter raised his eyebrows because he made some reluctant and qualifying remarks–we’ve done this all night, and I’m not doing this because I think it’s a good idea, but because you say so. And then, Peter obeyed.

When they let down their nets, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets—which they had just repaired and washed—began to break again (See Luke 5:6).

They couldn’t handle what Jesus provided in abundance. It was “immeasurably more than all they could have asked or imagined” (See Ephesians 3:20). In fact, they had to signal their partners in the other boat to come and help.

Peter got a front-row seat to the kindness of Jesus demonstrated by a pile of fish that was sinking his boat, and it drove him to his knees in worship and repentance. 

Jesus did for Peter what Peter couldn’t do for himself. 

Jesus did for Peter what Peter couldn’t do for himself. 

Followers Find Relief

To me, that story was God’s vivid illustration of the gospel.

I can work and strive and huff and puff, struggle to do all the right things, to “make deposits” in order to earn God’s favor and approval, but my transactions did nothing to improve my standing with God! 

In fact, they kept me relying on my “righteous” deposits, and that is the OPPOSITE of following Jesus.

Ultimately, God isn’t asking us to merely be nice and hardworking. He demands that we be holy. And no matter how hard we work, no matter how many “deposits” we make, we cannot make ourselves holy.

The gap between our goodness and God’s true holiness is too vast. We can’t fill it with good behavior. We need someone else to intervene. And much to our relief, Jesus has. 

When Jesus died on the cross, God initiated an exchange. Martin Luther called it “The Great Exchange.” I like to call it The Divine Cut and Paste.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.”

At the cross, God cut away my sin and pasted it on Jesus. Jesus suffered the consequences of my sin. He died instead of me. But that is not all. God also cut away Jesus’s perfect, righteous life-record and pasted it onto me.

All those years of working to maintain my account and status were years of misplaced energy. I had misunderstood. Not only did Jesus suffer the consequences I deserved and give me a “clean slate” when he died on the cross, on the blank slate where my sin had been recorded, God rewrote the record with Jesus’ PERFECT LIFE.

Jesus did for me what I could not do for myself. Once and for all, God declared me holy in his sight because of what Jesus did, not because of anything I had done or needed to do.

And for the first time, the gospel became extremely good news to me. It wasn’t an account that I had to maintain. The gospel was a relief! My standing before God, his approval of me, his kindness toward me wasn’t dependent on me! It was dependent on Jesus!

Suddenly, following Jesus wasn’t a chore. It was a no-brainer!

Followers Find Certainty

Have you misunderstood what it means to be a follower of Jesus? Are you depending on something besides Jesus’ work on the cross to secure your approval, your righteous standing before God? Are you making deposits to “shore things up” with him?

Does it feel strange or difficult to say, “I am holy in his sight,” because of what you know about yourself? 

What if you believed that Jesus’s perfect righteousness—credited to your account—is the reason you can say with all certainty, “I am holy in his sight.”

On the other hand, maybe you’re a bit put off that you can’t earn your own righteous standing. I mean, shouldn’t your goodness count for something? We Westerners pride ourselves on earning our keep and not taking handouts. But Christ’s death (instead of yours) and his righteous life (applied to you) is a necessary handout! We can’t be declared righteous in God’s sight without accepting it!

When you stand before God to give an account for the one precious life he’s entrusted to you, what will you point to that will show him you are holy and worthy to enter his holy presence in his holy kingdom?

Pastor and author Greg Gilbert answers, “I’ll tell you what every Christian whose faith is in Christ alone will do. By God’s grace, they will simply and quietly point to Jesus. And this will be their plea: O God, do not look for any righteousness in my own life. Look at your Son. Count me righteous…because of Him. He lived the life I should have lived. He died the death that I deserve. I have renounced all other trusts, and my plea is him alone. Justify me, O God, because of Jesus” (What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert, page 83.)

Following Jesus means putting our faith in Christ and renouncing any other method of being counted righteous before God.

That’s what Peter did.

With that astonishing view of Jesus’s power and kindness, there was no deliberating about what to do with the huge pile of income once it was hauled in.

He left it on the shore and followed Jesus.

The post What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

It’s been one month since we emptied the contents of our home into a dumpster.

After our house fire, a friend texted to see how I was faring and to find out how she could pray specifically. She asked, “Are you grieving the loss of any particular thing?”

I wanted to answer honestly, but I could not think of one lost item that had caused me more grief than another. The truth was, I was heartbroken and sick to my stomach over the loss of it all.

For twenty years, we’ve worked to make a home where our children could learn and thrive. We carefully considered which living room furniture would withstand the rigors of growing kids. Is it easier to wipe Cheeto-dusted fingerprints off leather or microfiber? Is the ease of wiping Cheeto dust from leather worth the extra cost? 

Over the years, we’ve picked up interesting pieces of antique furniture to refinish and use. Finding furniture for free or cheap was fun and always unexpected. When I found a place for each piece in our home, I felt resourceful, as if I had rescued a bit of history and restored its functionality and beauty.

Most of our furniture was either consumed in the fire or ruined by secondary damage, so we hurled it into a 30-yard dumpster parked beside our deck.

We lost other things too. Favorite shoes that didn’t hurt my feet. The perfect winter coat that blocked the wind but wasn’t too bulky. My 1995 KitchenAid dishwasher, which cleaned dishes better and faster than anything you can buy in 2022. (When I bought it used from someone who was remodeling their kitchen, I actually apologized for buying it for $100 and wished them luck with their new dishwasher.)

To see all these things and more piled in a dumpster broke my heart. It wasn’t that I was so attached to my “things,” although there was an element of that.

What I saw was 20 years of careful investment of time and treasure suddenly rendered worthless and destined for the city garbage heap.

The dumpster is still sitting outside the house, and every time I drive out there to feed the dogs or water trees, I see two decades of ruined home-making, dampened by recent rain and baking in the summer heat—a literal steaming pile.

The sight of it takes my breath away as if I’ve been punched in the gut. 

“We are all safe,” I remind myself. “It’s just stuff,” I scold, and I know those statements are true. But the actual ton of trash in the dumpster seems to say, “Your work was a waste!”

“Was it?” I answer the dumpster. Christ followers, by definition, work for Christ, regardless of the location or nature of their work. For the Christian, all work, whether it’s raising kids, stewarding a home, managing personnel, caring for patients, teaching students, driving a tractor, or bottle feeding calves, is work for the Lord. If it’s all done for the Lord, why does he allow it to be wasted? When the child rebels, when students drop out, when crops get pulverized by hail, time and effort feel wasted. Doesn’t he care about the outcome? 

Jungle missionary Elisabeth Elliot asked a similar question about her work. She was a gifted linguist and writer who intended to serve Christ as a missionary for life. She spent years translating the Bible into various languages for unreached people groups. By listening to her tribal neighbors and friends, she learned to speak unwritten languages, created alphabets, and translated portions of the Bible for people who had never heard of Jesus. 

But over the years, her language work with the Colorado, Quichua, and Waorani tribes, for various reasons, came to nothing. 

In her diaries, she wrote about sending the entirety of her work on the Colorado language to a Bible translator in another town. On the way, the suitcase containing her work was stolen, never to be recovered. 

In her devotional, she wrote, “I received a copy of the Auca (now known as Waorani) translation of the New Testament. The orthography has been greatly altered since my day, so I can’t read much of it now, but leafing through the pages I thought long, long thoughts. I had had nothing to do with the translation.“

She likened her lost work to the Old Testament sacrifices. 

In the Old Testament, Jewish families demonstrated obedience, dependence, and love for God by bringing him their best, unblemished sacrifice. When they did, their best was laid on the altar.

Then it was burned up.

And as it was burned, it was accepted.

Her thoughts have comforted me as I peer into a dumpster full of life investment and careful effort. Alongside coats and shoes, I see my paperbacks stained by soot, reeking of smoke, and unfit to sell or give. I see my son’s Bible, with its charred pages flaking away in the breeze. It is all evidence of a life’s work. Although I did the best I could, it has been burned (or ruined by smoke, heat, or water). But because of Jesus, it is all accepted by God as a “spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1).

The apostle Paul wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24, NIV).

The fire and the dumpster have reoriented my understanding of what it means to “work for the Lord.” 

Perhaps you’ve seen your careful effort steaming in a dumpster. Maybe you’ve scrawled your name at the bottom of a divorce decree. Maybe the ministry God called you to has crumbled under the weight of human conflict.

When we “work for the Lord” and offer our effort to him, it might be burned, ruined, or abandoned, but it cannot be wasted. It is impossible for it to “come to nothing” because nothing offered to Christ is ever wasted. He often uses it for purposes we could never imagine, but he does not waste it.  

I am still sad to see 20 years of making a home trashed, but I am reminded of the goodness of the gospel. The gospel tells me that my acceptance before God is not dependent upon my good stewardship, my resourcefulness, or my commitment to making a home that honors him.

It is solely dependent on Jesus! Stewardship and home-making can be burned or ruined, but when I offer myself to God as a living sacrifice in all I do, I worship. 

And worship is never wasted.

The post When Your Efforts Seem Wasted appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

On a gorgeous May evening, the night before our middle son Spencer’s high school graduation, our house caught on fire.

Our family and our pets are all safe. Uprooted, but doing well overall.

In the past two weeks, our family, church family, friends, and community have absolutely bent over backward to anticipate our needs and meet them. We have been first-hand witnesses and beneficiaries of the body of Christ working together, each member doing its part (1 Corinthians 12:26-27). It has been breathtaking and humbling.

I wanted to write a quick note to inform or update you, and to chronicle God’s goodness to us so that we will remember and testify to his faithfulness.

What happened?

Saturday afternoon, May 21, we had gathered around our outdoor fireplace on our covered patio. My parents were here to celebrate Spencer’s graduation. It was cool out, and it was my mom’s birthday, so a relaxing afternoon by the fire seemed like a great way to celebrate.

The fire had burned down to coals, and we were preparing to leave for dinner. My parents, Zach, and I were inside the house. Spencer was at baseball, and Levi was attending a friend’s graduation reception. Kurt was outside winding up the garden hose when he smelled “non-campfire” smoke.

He hollered into the house for me to call 911, and I did, even though I didn’t yet know what our emergency was. I ran outside and saw Kurt hosing down the roof of the covered patio.

The garden hose couldn’t keep up. The breeze blew the fire into Levi’s bedroom, and Kurt had to abandon the garden hose as the fire grew.

Inside the house, I grabbed my purse, some important papers, and my laptop. Smoke was curling up through the floorboards in my office, so I decided not to crawl under my desk to unplug my charger. (It was a good decisions, but it also meant my computer was dead for almost two weeks before I got another charger).

Since Zach and my parents were visiting, all their clothes were packed in duffel bags, and they quickly grabbed most of their things. Our dogs’ kennel was upwind from the fire and was never in danger.

As I was running out, I saw the 20 pounds of sloppy joe meat I’d made for Spencer’s graduation reception thawing on the counter. I thought, “I’m going to need that tomorrow.” My arms were full, and as I considered how I could grab it, I started breathing in smoke and quickly decided to leave it.

Zach has always been a quick thinker in emergencies. Though I didn’t know it at the time, he was throwing the most flammable items, like the mattress, out of Levi’s room.

Levi was in town across the river and saw smoke. He called and asked, “Is our house on fire?” and in a surreal moment, I answered, “Yes.”

Spencer was in the dugout at his baseball game. I called a friend at the game, and she walked to the dugout and had him call me.

The Pierre & Fort Pierre Volunteer Fire Departments arrived and expertly took over. The rest of us stood in the yard feeling useless.

One by one, friends and family began to call, text, and arrive, and the body of Christ sprang into action.

As the house was burning, a church friend called to say, “I’ve got Spencer’s graduation party covered.” Another friend texted and asked how many pounds of sloppy joe meat I’d need for the reception. My mom stood by me, and we cried. Then we laughed because we knew the sloppy joe meat was “thawed.”

I had already loaded all of Spencer’s graduation decorations, memorabilia, and reception food (minus the thawing meat ) into my vehicle, so our friends loaded it all into their pickup and took it to the reception venue.

More friends texted to say they were praying. Several families who were out of town offered their homes to us. The text messages and calls offering support, prayer, and housing just kept rolling in.

Later that week, our local paper ran an article about how our community swooped in to carry us through. You can read it here.

With the help of many friends who donated furniture, household items, and muscle, we’ve settled into a little rental house in town. Several friends had it completely furnished and set up for us. When we brought our bags in, I felt like I was on an episode of Extreme Home Makeover!

How extensive was the damage?

When we contacted our insurance company, they asked, “What is the extent of the damage?” I didn’t exactly know how to answer. Everything looked ruined to me. Water and black soot ran down every wall, but the house was still standing. We’ve begun the process of sifting through some belongings to see what can or should be salvaged.

As I lifted a book on my side table, I found this book beneath it.

I sent the photo to the author, Lisa Appelo, and she wrote this beautiful post that captured thoughts I couldn’t put into words at the time:

Maybe like this book you’re forever marked by the heat and flames that took so much and you want to believe it didn’t take everything. That ashes aren’t the end. And that if you’ll do the grueling work of grief, you’ll see God not restore life as it was, but bring new beauty you never would have had otherwise.Hope woos us to sift through the ashes, not sit and stay in them. To grieve deeply over all that’s gone even as we take tender steps forward. And to trust that God is not now resigned to Plan B. There are no Plan B’s with God. This is Chapter 2 — a chapter God has allowed and as such it is filled to the BRIM with purpose, abundance, joy and goodness. Our life may be marked by flames, but may they be marked far deeper by God’s grace.

​

​Lisa Appelo

What’s next?

Many people have reached out to ask how to help. The Lord continues to care for us through the kindness and generosity of his people. Every need has been met! He has even tended to some of our “wants,” and it feels like we are experiencing the over-the-top lovingkindness of God, which I had hoped to write about in Remarkable Love. But as you can imagine, the book is on hold indefinitely. We will be out of our home for a minimum of six months, and probably much longer.

Please pray for wisdom as we make decisions in the coming weeks and months. Please also pray that God will be glorified and that he will bring beauty from ashes just as he has promised (Isaiah 61:3).

The post House Fire, Graduation, and God’s Provision appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

Based on the gospel accounts in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20.

I know Easter Day has come and gone, but there was one moment from the Easter story that wouldn’t leave me even after I’d picked all the plastic grass out of my carpet.

Every time I read the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, the Sunday morning scene captivates me. Though Bible scholars disagree about the chronology presented in the four gospel accounts, Jesus’ resurrection rings true from every angle.

I imagined the short scene outside the empty tomb from Mary Magdalene’s angle. I hope you enjoy:

Mary Breaks Down

When Peter and John arrived at the open tomb, the guards Mary had described as dead men, the ones she had stepped over as she peered into the tomb, were gone.

Peter cast a sideways glance at John, and Mary felt her certainty evaporating.

“They were here.” She said as she searched the dirt for signs of them being dragged away.

Had the Romans retrieved their own dead as well?

The angels were also gone. The tomb was dim, but the burial cloths lay in the deflated form of a man, and the face cloth was still folded, just as she had told them.

Mary felt herself shivering as she watched Peter and John slowly walk away from the garden, shaking their heads.

She was still recovering her breath. The three of them had run the whole way. Sweat trickled down the middle of her back and caused a chill in the morning coolness. The sun had peeked above the horizon and warmed the stone she had worried about moving. She leaned against it, and her tunic soaked up the sweat.

Her neck stung where the strap of her spice-filled satchel had rubbed it raw as she’d fled this place hours ago. In terror and astonishment, she had run from this garden of bones with news from an angel that Jesus was not among the dead.

Mary was familiar with spirits. Evil spirits had once made death look appealing, like something to crave. But this spirit, this angel, reminded her that death was not to be craved but conquered.

“He has risen,” the angel had said. “Quick! Go and tell his disciples,” he raised a hand as if to stop her from rushing away and added, “and Peter. Makes sure you tell Peter too.”

And so she had. If the eleven disciples hadn’t been so paralyzed with grief and fear, they might have laughed her out the door. Instead, they chided, her.

“You’re not making sense, Mary.”

“You should have slept instead of visiting his tomb.”

“Have you been nursing a bottle of wine all night?”

When her insistence about what she had seen and heard began to sound like nonsense to her own ears, she finally burst into tears and said the only thing that made sense, “They have taken him away, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Thaddaeus burst into a rant against Rome. Peter jumped up from the bench , and it tipped over behind him. John was out the door, and Peter rushed after him.

Mary and the other women looked at one another, “I’ll go,” Mary said, and she rushed back into the morning.

Now, as she stood alone before the empty tomb, her bewildering account was disintegrating.

She unshouldered the bag and let it slide to the ground. When it landed, the jars clanked together. Fragrance wafted up from the bag, and she knew one had broken. She didn’t care. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Friday’s nightmare had beaten her down with wave after wave of injustice and lies and irrevocable evil.

She had prayed and cried and pleaded with the executioners, following Jesus all the way to Golgotha. On the way, she had reached to pull a mass of thorns from his tangled hair, but the guard had drawn his sword, and she drew back. She begged him to let Jesus have a drink, and he ignored her. When she asked to wipe the blood from his eyes so he could see, the soldier threatened to have her arrested as well.

She could not relieve his suffering. As a consolation, she had wanted to give Jesus a proper burial, but now she couldn’t even manage to do that.

She wiped her eyes with the edge of her sleeves and inhaled. John and Peter were out of sight, surely wondering if she had the fever, or worse, had been reclaimed by the demons Jesus had freed her from.

She knew she must return to the house and reasonably, calmly explain what she had seen. She must witness to the truth, even if she didn’t understand it. She bent down to look again at the place where she had last seen Jesus laying. She wanted to burn the sight into her memory.

Sticking her head inside the tomb, she gasped, and a terrified sob came up. Two spirits, dressed in white, were seated on the ledge where Jesus’ body had lain. 

“Woman, why are you crying?” one of them asked.

Mary trembled and defaulted to the answer that made sense, “They have taken away my Lord,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.”

She turned to grab her satchel to show them why she had come, that her intentions were good and holy, and when she did, she was startled again by another man standing outside the tomb.

In her fright, she jolted and bumped her head on the low ceiling of the entrance.

“Sir!” she said as she pressed her hand to her throbbing head. She opened her bag to explain to the graveyard gardener why she had come. The jostled jars stirred the fragrance again.

“Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” said the gardener.

“The man who was in here.” She pointed into the tomb, wondering if this man could see—had seen—the angels. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will get him.”

As soon as the words were out, she realized she’d made a false promise. How could she carry a body? Maybe John and Peter would come back if she could find out where they’d put his body.

She waited for his answer and rubbed her damp sleeve under her nose.

Then he spoke. “Mary.”

Mary froze. An invisible bolt of lightning coursed through her and stopped her heartbeat for a moment. She stared at him. His face was vaguely familiar, but the sound of her name on his lips was unmistakable.

“Teacher!” She rushed into his arms, daring to believe they were the solid arms of Jesus and not the vaporous limbs of a spirit. She squeezed him and began to cry again.

Dear Lord,

You are good. You make us recognize your voice when we can’t believe our eyes. When we can’t seem to believe what you’ve done, help us listen for your voice. May we find relief in discovering that what you taught has been true all along, even if we didn’t understand it in the moment. Thank you for letting us recognize your voice and for claiming us by name. We belong to you, and nothing can snatch us from your nail-scarred hands.

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The post appeared first on Shauna Letellier.