Get Up

And Peter put them outside and Peter kneels down and simply says a prayer and than tells Tabitha to get up. She sits up and is shown to be alive. And through this act many came to know the Lord.

We are not told of how Tabitha felt or Peter’s response. But the response of the people is indicated, “this became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”

Sometimes when we sit in the pews or when we sit behind the pulpit we don’t look very alive. We are sometimes tired, sometimes drained and sometimes feeling entirely too human and vulnerable. And sometimes we need people to pray for us and to tell us to get up. Sometimes we need them to tell us this softly and gently, sometimes we need them to yell it at us…but there are times when we need to hear—GET UP! Then we need to look around us, get up and go make a difference.

We need to let Jesus into our lives to make that difference. We people need to not place him in a box and take him out when it is convenient for us. We need not set him on a shelf and take him down and show him off as if he were a trophy. We need to let him shine all the time. We need to be the beacons of Christ love. We need to let God show through us in all things and all the time. We need to shout it out to our fellow Christians…”GET UP!!”

We need to shout it to ourselves—“GET UP!!” We sometimes become complacent. We become comfortable with our everyday program. We don’t want anything to change, we don’t want our lives altered, but change is good and can be surprising. We might find that we like the changes and we will assimilate those changes into our lives.

Change…can be good, it can be life altering and it can be helpful. Understand that there is a difference between not changing and having a routine.

I have a routine for my prayer time and my Bible study time. I keep that routine to help me grow in my spiritual life. I make sure that time is kept…

The change’s that we need not be afraid of—is spiritual growth, change in the worship, change in our services, change in our Sunday school classes. And not only spiritual but numeric growth. Everyday in our Christian walk should bring about change and transformation—we should not stay the same week after week. We should grow, we should share, we should adapt. We should become more than we were before.

“Today we are going to draw a picture,” Timmy’s kindergarten teacher announced. Good, Timmy thought. He liked to draw pictures. He could draw lions and tigers and trains and boats. He took out his crayons and began to draw.But the teacher said, “Wait, it’s not time to begin.” She paused until everyone looked ready. “Now,” she said, “we are going to draw flowers.”Good, Timmy thought. He began to draw beautiful flowers with his orange and pink and blue crayons.But the teacher said, “Wait.” She drew a picture of a flower on the blackboard. It was red with a green stem. “There,” she said, “now you may begin.”Timmy looked at his teacher’s flower. He liked his better, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned his paper over and made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red with a green stem.A few days later the teacher said, “Today we are going to make something with clay.”Good, Timmy thought. He could make all kinds of things with clay—snakes and snowmen and elephants and mice. He began to pinch and pull his ball of clay.But the teacher said, “Wait, I’ll show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make a dish.So Timmy rolled his clay into a ball, flattened it, and made a dish like the teacher’s.Timmy learned to wait and watch and make things just like the teacher’s. And pretty soon he stopped making creations of his own.Then one day Timmy’s family moved to another city, and Timmy started at a new school. On his first day, Timmy’s new teacher said, “Today we are going to draw a picture.”Good, Timmy thought. And he waited for the teacher to tell him what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room. When she came to Timmy, she said, “Don’t you want to draw a picture?”“Yes,” said Timmy. “What are we going to draw?”“Well, I don’t know until you draw it,” the teacher said.“How should I make it?” he asked.“Why, any way you like.”“And any color?”“Any color,” the teacher said. “If everyone drew the same thing in the same color, how would I know who made what?”“I don’t know,” said Timmy. And he began to draw a flower.It was red with a green stem.