Lent Devotionals – Day 2

John 1: 29 – 51:

I love the story in John 1 where Simon meets Jesus. This is primarily because it is the start of the Church history. Simon, who will very quickly see his name changed to ‘Cephas’ or ‘Peter’, meaning rock, is the man who Jesus chose to build his Church.

And the man who we can all thank that for happening is Andrew. Aren’t Andrews great?!

Andrew, at this point in time, is someone who has been listening to the words of John the Baptist and is likely intrigued as to who this Jesus guy is. However, after spending one afternoon with him, he is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the man who satisfies all of the prophecies that the Old Testament speak of.

The “first thing” (v. 41) that he does is to get his brother, Simon. Primarily, when we meet Jesus, when we enter into a relationship with him as Andrew did here, the first thing we should do is tell people about Him. And then, in verse 42, the wonderfully simple sentence: “And he brought him to Jesus” shows how we should tell and show people Jesus.

And then, in verse 42, the wonderfully simple sentence: “And he brought him to Jesus.”

Andrew is not a man of great knowledge of Jesus, he has not spent years and years being discipled by him. Not at this point, anyway. He doesn’t have any particularly profound evangelical techniques or beautifully crafted arguments to reason his way to Simon’s thinking. Rather, he simply tells him who Jesus is and then brings him to meet Christ. That’s it.

When Simon comes to Jesus on Andrew’s asking, before he has even muttered a word, Jesus changes his identity, into the man that we know today as Peter, the founder of our Church.

At first, we are Simons. We do not know God, we do not understand Him. We may not even like Him. But when we meet Jesus, our identity changes and we become Peters. As we grow in our faith with Jesus, we gradually become Andrews, telling people about how great God is and bringing them to meet him.

Jesus is working in our lives and other’s lives. We get to be a part of that, by telling people about Him, like Andrew did, and seeing him change our character and out identity.