Acts 4:1-12

Acts 4:1-12
English Standard Version (ESV) 

  I don't lead a life that teeters on the edge of going to prison.  I'm not one to pose a threat -- and I'm deferential enough that I could probably be dissuaded fairly easily by guards showing up and threatening to toss me in prison.  I don't think it's an environment in which I would thrive.
  But Peter has this urgency about him.  It's the same passion we see in Luke 5 when Peter falls before Jesus and tells Jesus to go away, for Peter is a sinful man.  Peter is the one who promised to die beside Jesus and then denied him three times.  Peter knows how far he has fallen and is overwhelmed by a burden to tell about the power of a Savior who forgives.  Peter has a story to tell, and no guard or prison wall will contain it.
  This is evangelism at its finest -- someone who has been overwhelmed by the love of God and cannot not tell people.  It's an urge, buried within, to tell a beautiful story about forgiveness and grace and redemption and second chances.  It's a glimpse of eternity that burrows into the soul and compels the person to tell anyone, everyone, about what they have seen, felt and experienced.  It's a firm hold on the Truth that must be shared.
  Peter knows how lost he was, and he is grateful to be found.  He wants others to experience what it's like to be found as well.
  I know that I was lost.  I'm grateful that God still loves me.  The question before me, and every other person who has experienced grace, is how are we going to share the story, so that all the world may know that there is no other name under heaven by which we are saved.