Will Your Speech Betray You?

 After a little while those who stood by came and said to Peter, "Surely you are also one of them, for your speech makes you known." (Matthew 26:73)

Have you ever wondered whether people would know your faith if you pretended otherwise? Would your speech betray you?

Peter was in such a fix. He was amidst a hostile crowd at night. Not only did he need to warm himself from the cold of the night, he had to blend in because the agenda of the crowd gathered in the night’s cold was to ensure that his hero, rabbi and Lord died. He would therefore be as exposed as his master if this crowd got to know that he was in His team and that is not a comfortable thought in that dark night.

But his association with Christ could not be concealed for long. Though he even tried his old fishing lingua he was unable to shake the continuous discipleship he had undergone under Christ. Even swearing (provably the strongest effort he made to be so unlike Christ) was inadequate to shield him from exposure.

Simply speaking, every effort at lying to prove that he was part of the crowd was inadequate to hide his close association to the soon to be crucified Master.

Probably it was in the way he spoke those curses that betrayed him. Maybe it was his gestures that betrayed him. Maybe it was his insistence on the fact that he did not belong to Christ that betrayed him. Maybe it was his intense effort to try to blend in that betrayed him. Maybe it was his gentleness and authority when trying to prove his point.

But the important fact is that he was unable to distance himself from his closeness to Christ however hard he tried.

That dangerous truth I always repeat surfaces. A tree is known by the fruit it produces. Nor argument is needed yo differentiate a lemon from an orange tree when they are in the fruit stage, or the ones with seeds from the ones without.

Peter was unable to disappear into the woodwork because of what Christ had done on his life.

What am I saying?

What has Christ done in your life? What have the scriptures done to you?

Is that evident? Can you hide it or are you like Peter?

Have you absorbed scripture in such a way that it is what oozes when you are put under pressure or punctured? Have you been so immersed in prayer that it is what your presence draws even at the ‘wrong’ place?

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Being with Jesus was the difference, the same difference that should describe us.

Otherwise we do not belong to Him.