And they felt the weight of His authority......

They heard them too...

After witnessing all the miracles, and listening to all the teaching... it was as if the tables were turned.  This man who had fed the hungry, healed the sick, raised the dead had now spoken the  words that challenged all at the core of their being.


Can you imagine what it felt like to be the disciples on that day?  They, too, had heard Jesus speaking of eating flesh and drinking blood.  What was it that He was saying?  They watched the crowds disperse.  What were their hearts and minds full of in those moments?


Peter would answer Christ's question, of were they too going to leave, with the response that there was no other place to go.  But while acknowledging that reality, the fullness of the moment I can't believe was lost upon Peter.


We get glimpses and snapshots of the people we listen to.. we get 140 some odd characters from their tweeter feed, we get a status update that might read more like a fortune cookie than anything else, we get the picture that they want to paint to the world.


A person I once knew, who had been in international ministry, had a heart cry.  He had stood, even as a child, upon stages with names if dropped you would know them instantly... He had stood, sat, walked into green rooms and hospitality suites, what he had seen was the discrepancy between the man/woman on the stage and the man/woman in the scenes where he/she wasn't being seen.  The discrepancy tore at his heart and his cry... his passion, was to see one whose life would be consistent in front of the people and in the places where no one looks.


That requires many things.. it requires the vulnerability to be oneself amidst a people and it requires of oneself to really pursue the things that one teaches and allow it all to bring transformation.  There should be no show... sitting before the people Jesus spoke as it is and they felt the weight of His authority, they proclaimed their awe in their statements and declarations of the fact that He was not like their scribes.. HE WAS ONE WHO HAD AUTHORITY.


I watched a video on the refugees from Syria and I saw the faces of children and women and men... I thought of the 5000 plus that Jesus fed, and I thought of the multitudes that He brought comfort to and healing for...  I think of Jesus and the people who are in need of clean water and I think of Moses and water coming from a rock... I think upon all these things that beg and plead for the authority of Heaven to be released.. that cry aloud for the supremacy of the supernatural to break forth.


I hunger to see such things... I am so full of desire to see mediocrity wiped forth from my life and straining beyond all things to grasp a hold of faith and courage and pursue with unwavering perseverance and tenacity the things of Christ.


But then the hard sayings come forward.. the finger of the Lord being placed upon the idols that reside within my heart and my need for assurance and safety and acceptance...  And the words that echo into my head, "Are you too going to leave?"  and I think to myself.. BUT Lord, only with you are the words of life .. where else would I ever even go....


In a day and an age where media and hype and snap shots stream their ways across the stages of fellowship after fellowship I feel this calling and this somber alert in the spirit.  I feel this pull towards the disciplines of the faith and to glean life from them in way that honors spirit and truth.  I feel a pull towards foundational issues and the strengthening of such..


 I feel the day of the 10 virgins is upon us and the decision of spending time to fill the lamps with necessary oil is at hand.  It won't be the sound bites or the marvelous techno glamorous shows that will lay foundation to the building upon the rock and not the sands... But by pausing long enough to allow the truth of that which Christ speaks and the weight of His authority to rest upon our lives and bring forth eyes that see as He sees, ears that hear as He hears and hearts that are full of the reality and affections of Heaven so as to have those things pour forth....


I see the discrepancies more and more in my life.. and I, like Paul, have said, oh what a wretched person am I.  I hunger to proclaim laying that all aside and pushing forward now I take the steps... I  do believe the first of those steps is as the declaration of Peter.. where else am I to go?  With Him are the words of life and the hopes that the authority and reality of Heaven will break forth like the dawn!