God's Extreme Makeover: Timeline of Greatness

I have been doing this series called God's Extreme Makeover. In my last post I made the claim that if God is genuinely working through us and we have truly experienced His extreme makeover then the result should be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control a.k.a. the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). I didn't say that we needed to be master's of all these things but overall I would say we should continually strive to get better at them. For example, I am still an impatient person, but I pray that I am better than I was a week ago and I pray that I will be better next week.

That is all well and good but I need an example of someone who has done it, that has genuinely spent time with Jesus and had an extreme makeover. Have you ever taken a good look at the life of Simon Peter, one of the original 12 disciples? He is often the subject of endless ridicule and often used as an example of what not to do when in the presence of Jesus but I think he is more like you and me than any one of us wants to admit. Last week during my message I did a timeline of Peter's life. It is quite remarkable that he went from being a Jewish fishermen to one of the foundational characters in the early Christian movement. (If you have never read it I would suggest you crack open one of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) and take a look. The last chapter of John is the most powerful to me).

Peter had an extreme makeover for sure. Spending time with Jesus is the only way his transformation could have been possible. Peter started out being impatient, brash and proud but his life didn't end that way and that is encouraging for me but it also sets a challenge before me as well. Spending time with Jesus just as Peter did is what it takes for this extreme makeover to happen in my life. It goes beyond a daily "quiet time" and requires a true commitment to follow Christ with everything in my being. I don't think it was wrong for Peter to tell Jesus that he would never abandon him (Matthew 26:33), I think it was just premature because God hadn't finished the makeover yet. If you follow Peter's life to the end you see that he eventually died for the Messiah that he loved.

That is a challenge that I hope all of us can rise to. Life gets hard and busy but we can never abandon the one relationship that truly matters and that is our relationship with Jesus Christ. Giving our lives over to him is the only way an extreme makeover will ever happen.