“The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John . . . . They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.” – Acts 4:13

I want to live an amazing life. That doesn’t mean I want to be a superhero or win a championship ring or accumulate a shelf full of awards for writing. It means I want people to be amazed at all the things that happened through me because they recognize me as one “who had been with Jesus.” Wouldn’t that be amazing?

At the end of my life I want everyone, the people who like me and the people who wished I would just go away, to say “You can’t deny Jim loved Jesus.” The religious leaders looked at the life of Peter and John and could not deny that a miracle had taken place. Acts 4:16 says, “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it.” Try as they might, there was no way they could talk themselves out of seeing a miracle standing before them – a man who had been lame for more than forty years. That’s what I want. I want saints and sinners alike to be able to look at my life and say, “There’s no denying it – the way Jim lived was the way His Savior taught him to live, and everybody who knew him knew it was true. He wasn’t perfect, but you didn’t have to wonder about where his heart and mind was.” Continue Reading