The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter (Matt. 10:2). 

God makes leaders by taking people with the right raw material, putting them through the right experiences, and teaching them the right lessons. That’s how He trained Peter, and the results were astonishing. In the first twelve chapters of Acts we see Peter initiating the move to replace Judas with Matthias, preaching powerfully on the Day of Pentecost, healing a lame man, standing up to the Jewish authorities, confronting Ananias and Sapphira, dealing with Simon the magician, healing Aeneas, raising Dorcas from the dead, and taking the gospel to the Gentiles. In addition, he wrote two epistles that pass on to us all the lessons he learned from Jesus. What a leader! 

Peter was as much a model of spiritual leadership in death as he was in life. Jesus told him he would be crucified for God's glory, and early church tradition tells us that Peter was in fact crucified. But before putting him to death, his executioners forced him to watch the crucifixion of his wife. As he stood at the foot of her cross, he encouraging her by saying over and over, "Remember the Lord, remember the Lord." When it was time for his own crucifixion, he requested that he be crucified upside-down because he felt unworthy to die as his Lord had died. His request was granted. 

Just as God transformed Peter from a brash and impulsive fisherman into a powerful instrument for His glory, so He can transform everyone who is yielded to Him. 

You will never be an apostle, but you can have the same depth of character and can know the same joy of serving Christ that Peter knew. There's no higher calling in the world than to be an instrument of God's grace. Peter was faithful to that calling. May you be a faithful tool!
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter" (Matt. 10:2). 

We have seen that God uses our experiences to mold us into more effective Christians and leaders. Using Peter as our example, let's briefly look at five lessons we can learn from our experiences—submission, restraint, humility, sacrifice, and love. 

 Leaders tend to be confident and aggressive, so they must learn to submit to authority. Jesus illustrated that by telling Peter to go fishing and to look for a coin in the mouth of the first fish he caught (Matt 17:24-27). He was to use that coin to pay their taxes. Peter was a citizen of God's Kingdom, but he needed an object lesson in submitting to governmental authorities. 

When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter grabbed a sword and would have fought the entire group if Jesus hadn't restrained him. Peter needed to learn to entrust His life to the Father, just as Christ was doing. 

Peter bragged that he would never leave or forsake Christ—but he did. Perhaps humility was the most painful lesson he had to learn. Jesus told Peter that he would die as a martyr (John 21:18-19). From that day forward Peter knew his life was on the line, and yet he was willing to make the necessary sacrifice and minister anyway. 

 Leaders tend to be task-oriented and often are insensitive to people. Peter was that way, so Jesus demonstrated love by washing his feet and by instructing him to do loving deeds for others (John 13:6-9,34). 

Submission, restraint, humility, sacrifice, and love should be characteristic of every believer—no matter what role he or she has within the Body of Christ. I pray they are characteristic of your life, and that you will constantly seek to grow in those graces as God continues His work in you.  
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter" (Matt 10:2). 

Stan is a dear brother in Christ and a fellow pastor. Before coming to Grace Lutheran Church pastored a church in Montana. While there, he was riding one night in a truck that was involved in a very serious accident. Stan suffered a broken neck and other major injuries. As a result he underwent months of arduous and painful therapy. 

That was one of the most difficult periods in Stan's life, and yet God used it for a specific purpose. Today, as pastor of special-ministries department, Stan ministers to more than five hundred physically and mentally handicapped people. God needed a man with unique qualifications to show love to a group of very special people. He chose Stan and allowed him the necessary experiences to fit him for the task. 

God doesn't always permit such serious situations, but He does lead each of us into life changing experiences that heighten our effectiveness in ministry. 

Peter had many such experiences. In Matthew 16:15-16, for example, God gave him special revelation about the deity of Christ. In Acts 10 God sent him to preach the gospel to Gentiles—something unheard of at the time because Jewish people resisted any interaction with Gentiles. Perhaps the most tragic experience of Peter’s life was his denial of Christ. But even that only increased his love for Christ and his appreciation of God's grace. After His resurrection, Christ forgave him and restored him to ministry (John 21:15-19). 

Peter's many experiences helped prepare him for the key role he was to play in the early church. Similarly, your experiences help prepare you for future ministry. So seek to discern God's hand in your circumstances, and rejoice at the prospect of becoming a more effective Christian. 
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter" (Matt.10:2). 

Peter is a good illustration of how God builds a spiritual leader. He begins with a person's natural traits and works from mere. Natural traits alone don't make a spiritual leader; the person must also be gifted and called by the Holy Spirit to lead in the church and to be a model of spiritual virtue. But often God endows future leaders with natural abilities that constitute the raw materials from which He builds spiritual ministries. That was certainly the case with Peter, who demonstrated the leadership qualities of inquisitiveness, initiative, and involvement. 

Peter was always asking questions. In fact, the Gospel records show that he asked more questions than all the other disciples combined! People who aren't inquisitive don’t make good leaders because they're not concerned about problems and solutions. Initiative was another indicator of Peter's leadership potential. He not only asked questions, but also he was often the first to respond when Jesus asked questions (e.g., Matt 16:15-16; Luke 8:45). 

Also, Peter loved to be in the middle of the action, even when it got him into trouble. For example, we might criticize his lack of faith when he sank after walking on water, but remember, the rest of the disciples never even got out of the boat. 

Peter was inquisitive, showed initiative, and sought to be involved. How about you? Are you inquisitive about God's truth? Do you take the initiative to learn about Him? Do you want to be involved in what He is doing? If so, you have the raw material for spiritual leadership. Continue to cultivate those qualities, allowing the Spirit to use you for God's glory. 
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter" (Matt. 10:2). 

The first disciple Matthew's Gospel names is "Simon, who is called Peter." He was a fisherman by trade, but Jesus called him to be a fisher of men. John 1:40-42 records their first encounter: "One of the two who heard John [the Baptist] speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He found first his own brother Simon, and... brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, 'You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas' (which translated means Peter)." 

 "Peter" means "stone." "Cephas" is its Aramaic equivalent. By nature Simon tended to be impulsive and vacillating. Apparently Jesus named him Peter as a reminder of his future role in the church, which would require spiritual strength and stability. Whenever Peter acted like a man of strength, Jesus called him by his new name. When he sinned, Jesus called him by his old name (e.g., John 21:15-17). In the Gospel of John, Peter is called "Simon Peter" seventeen times. Perhaps John knew Peter so well, he realized he was always drifting somewhere between sinful Simon and spiritual Peter. 

For the next few days we will see how Jesus worked with Peter to transform him into a true spiritual rock. It was an amazing transformation, but not unlike what He desires to do in every believer's life. 

You might not have the same personality as Peter, but the Lord wants you to be a spiritual rock just the same. Peter himself wrote, "You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). That occurs as you "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). Make that your continual aim  
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. (Matt 10:2-4). 

Unity is a crucial element in the life of the church-especially among its leadership. A unified church can accomplish great things for Christ, but disunity can cripple or destroy it Even the most orthodox churches aren't immune to disunity's subtle attack because it often arises from personality clashes or pride rather man doctrinal issues. 

God often brings together in congregations and ministry teams people of vastly different backgrounds and temperaments. That mix produces a variety of skills and ministries, but it also produces the potential for disunity and strife. That was certainly true of the disciples, which, included an impetuous fisherman (Peter), two passionate and ambitious "sons of thunder" (James and John), an analytical, pragmatic, and pessimistic man (Philip), a racially prejudiced man (Bartholomew), a despised tax collector (Matthew), a political Zealot (Simon), and a traitor (Judas, who was in it only for the money and eventually sold out for. thirty pieces of silver). 

Imagine the potential for disaster in a group like that! Yet their common purpose transcended their individual differences, and by His grace the Lord accomplished through them what they never could have accomplished on their own. That's the power of spiritual unity! 

 As a Christian, you're part of a select team that is accomplishing the world's greatest task: finishing the work Jesus began. That requires unity of purpose and effort. Satan will try to sow seeds of discord, but you must do everything possible to heed Paul's admonition to be "of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose"" (Phil. 2:2)  
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

  "Having summoned His twelve disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these..." (Matt. 10:1-2).

Have you ever met someone who constantly absorbs what the church has to offer, yet never seems to plug into a ministry where he can give to others? I’ve met many people like that. Some have attended church for many years, and have even taken evangelism and other special training classes. But they never quite feel qualified to minister to others or even to share their testimony. Eventually that has a crippling effect on their spiritual lives and on the life of the church in general. 

 When Jesus called the disciples to Himself, He did so in order to train them for ministry. We see this in Matthew 10:1-2. The Greek word translated "disciples" means “learners." "Apostles" translates a Greek word meaning "to dispatch away from" or "to send." In classical Greek it refers to a naval expedition dispatched to serve a foreign city or country. Disciples are learners; apostles are emissaries. Jesus called untrained disciples, but He dispatched trained apostles. That's the normal training process. 

 In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus says, "Go... and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I commanded you." Paul said to Timothy, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). 

As wonderful and important as it is to learn of Christ, you must never be content to be a disciple only. You must also be a disciple!  
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,