During this study for Exchange of finding my identity in Christ. I came across a story of Peter and John when they were starting ministry in the early church. Peter and John are preaching the name of Jesus to the people in Acts 3 after healing a crippled beggar who was never able to walk. They are arrested by the religious leaders and brought before the Sanhedrin. The guys in the Sanhedrin aren't anything to mess with. They were highly educated and greatly respected. When they said jump the Jews asked how high, how far, and with what intensity. Standing before them because you did something they didn't like wasn't a place where anyone wanted to be. They knew everything you could know about the Old Testament. In fact, they had it memorized. These leaders were the elite. 

     Peter and John. Well, they weren't elite. They didn't have the bible memorized. Here is what I related with-- Acts 4:13 "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." 

Read that verse again. 

     Peter and John were unschooled, ordinary men. They didn't have a great education. I don't know what the school systems were like back then. But, we find out that there education wasn't what God them noticed. They weren't even defined by the teachings they learned from Jesus.   They were identified as men that had "been with Jesus." I have to think that Peter and John had over heard one or two of these leaders saying what a joke it was that they were speaking out about something. I'm sure it wasn't just a silent thought for these religious leaders that these two men were 'unschooled.' Everyone could easily tell that the leaders didn't think much of these two at first. Yet, when Peter speaks they are astonished. They weren't astonished by his fancy vocabulary, or his sentence structure. They were astonished by Peter and John because the words they spoke showed that these men had been with Jesus. Peter and John found their identity in Christ. 

     I have been told all my life that I wasn't very smart. I have always been a slow reader. Even in college I had a pretty bad experience reading in a class and the teacher called me out on it. I can joke about it now cause I don't find my identity in my reading skills any more. But, for a long time, it made me think twice about stepping out to say something or read something in a class or in a bible study. I would be consumed with whether or not I would stumble over the words or sound dumb. People would feel bad or poke fun at me, even people that really cared about me. Both responses made me cringe in anger or embarrassment. I hated that feeling. I have worked really hard in the past few years to get better at reading. (If you have trouble reading- just do it a lot and read out loud. It's terribly awkward and I hate doing it. But it helps.) But, what has helped me more, isn't reading better (although honestly, it does help) it's not letting what people say to me or about me define who I am.

      I was made in God's image. My imperfects are made perfect in Him (2 Corinthians 12:9). All who know Jesus will be like Him (1 John 3:2). If you follow Jesus, I hope you know this well, you are no longer identified as anything other than His (Romans 7:4). What people say, can not change the fact that you have been bought with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. No one can challenge the change that has been made in those that have been born again through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. My value and yours are found at the cross and empty grave of Christ and absolutely no where else.