Along this journey of life, we’ve been given one of its most precious gifts if we’ve had the privilege to intimately know the soul of a man whose richness of spirit and depth of character are far beyond the norm. In the close knowing of such a person, places deep inside of us are affected. Then long after they are gone, what they stood for still resonates in our soul. This impact will echo in the chambers of our mind and heart until our last breath.

To know someone like this does not happen often. For it is an encounter with the character of a person that is so life defining that the richness of their heritage and the rare profoundness of their legacy live on in us forever.

There was once a man named Peter who knew such a person. His name was Jesus. From the moment he said yes to the Man from Galilee and began to follow Him, Peter experienced a world he had never seen before, very much like what is expressed in these words…

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive.
And it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anonymous

For three years, Peter watched this unusually special Man react to different situations. He personally saw what was important to Jesus. Gradually, through shared experiences a powerful bond was forged. Peter described one of those unforgettable moments when he wrote toward the end of his life… “We ourselves heard the voice when we were there with Him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 1:18 NLT).

Peter also experienced what hurt his Friend. He saw the suffering in His eyes when Peter betrayed the trust of the one Person who had never given up on him, despite making a multitude of mistakes. Instead, this faithful Mentor had only relentlessly and unconditionally loved Peter, no matter what. His searing pain is captured in these wrenching words…“At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered and he broke down and cried” Luke 22:61, Mark 14:72 NLT).

After Peter failed his Friend, he loved Jesus with a magnitude of devotion that is born from the agony of letting a person down who only had been fiercely and loyally good to him. Yet somehow that Friend loved him so much that He let go of the betrayal and remembered it no more.

During the years after Jesus left him, Peter never forgot what He kept saying to those who walked close with Him…“Love each other as much as I love you. Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are My disciples” (John 13:34-35 TLB).

Seared into Peter’s memories of his beloved Companion was this glimpse into what mattered the most to Jesus…“You must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39 NLT). Peter was so irreversibly affected by this message that eventually it became part of him. In his final writings, Peter penned these words that reflect this impartation…

I have no doubt there were times when the loss of being with his Friend must have affected Peter deeply. Those are moments we each will experience if we’ve ever known someone who touched our life this significantly and they have ended their journey on this earth before us. Most certainly we will find ourselves looking up to heaven with tears, wishing we could have just one more time with them, to listen to their heart and for them to hear ours.

This same Jesus who radically changed the course of Peter’s entire life found me in 1973 and I was drowning in the most frightening despair. Even though I was only thirty years old, I had already given up on wanting to live.

Before Jesus invited me to be His friend, I never knew how to laugh or even smile. A long time before He found me, I had buckled under the weight of my devastating grief and no longer had the courage to hope or dream.

Yet just like what Peter encountered, a whole new world opened up when Jesus came to me. Immediately I began to experience what was written about ages and ages ago in the refrain of an old hymn. He began to “walk with me and talk with me.”

In my darkest hours and on all my mountain tops He unwaveringly assured me… “I am His own.  The joy we shared each time we tarried there” was etched upon my soul. Laughter bubbled up from the very core of my being and His presence beamed from my smile.

Then somewhere along the way the message that means so much to my Friend became my very own. Now, decades later, I continue to feel the grief of my Faithful Companion and My Tender Friend. I keenly sense His longing while I hear Him in my heart imploring all of us who know Him through these compelling words…

Though the whole world may forget how I lived, and why I died, please don’t forget Me.

Please carry with you wherever you go why I came.

Please remember, as if it was only yesterday, why I chose to live among men as one of their own, rather than different from them.

Please don’t let the remembrance of this grow dim for you with the passage of time.

I beg of you to be moved by this plea from My heart.

Then without even a word being spoken, you will carry My presence.

Even as you pass through the marketplace where people reject Me and despise Me, wondrous things will happen just because you walked by. When I am with you that intimately, you will experience what took place through My friend, Peter… “Sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that his shadow might fall across some of them as he went by…and they were all healed” (Acts 5:15-16 NLT).

That is how close I yearn for you to walk with Me when the embers of the Gospel have grown so cold in the hearts of even many of My own children.

I plead with you, in the days ahead don’t forget why I came.

Remember Me.

A Letter from Someone who loves you more than you could possibly imagine.

Jesus

This is a sobering hour in the history of mankind.

It is a time when the Body of Christ seriously needs to be apprehended once again by the same core truths that “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6 NLT) in the days of the Early Church.

We need to return to what Peter urged us to remember… “Most important of all, continue to show love for each other” (I Peter 4:8 NLT).

We need to find our way back to this foundational truth that Jesus lived and died to teach us...

Genuinely caring about one another is “equally important” to the most
glorious adoration we can ever offer to the Lord.

The Early Church Revival didn’t spread like wildfire because anointed, gifted people operated in their gifts.

It didn’t explode because there were supernatural manifestations, or even because of charismatic preaching or very talented speakers.

It took place because a sincere, practical love had so overtaken the early believers toward one another that people wanted to be Christians because their astounding reputation was, “See, how they love one another.”

It was that demonstration of love that drew the hearts of people into the church and to an encounter with Jesus. It is that same love that needs to be restored. Otherwise so much of Christianity becomes meaningless to God’s children and tragically futile to the world.

These lost truths burn in Barry and me.

As they do, we feel exactly like Peter expressed. We will keep reminding people of these things as long as we live. We will work hard to make them clear because we want those we encounter to remember them long after we are gone.

For there is an ache in the Father’s heart to have “really loving each other intensely and with all our hearts” once again become vitally important.

A return to this sincerity of selfless devotion and dead-to-self unity lays a solid foundation for the Fire of Revival to sweep across a tribe, a people, and a nation.

It wondrously prepares the way for the Glory of the Lord and His Visitation.

“In the desert prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill made low. The glory of the Lord will be revealed. All mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:3-5 NLT).