An Ordinary Man

In my study of James, I have often thought about its author. As I mentioned before, James did not always think that Jesus was the Messiah. John 7:5 says, "For not even His brothers were believing in Him." In fact, at one point Jesus' family goes to take custody of Him for they feared He had lost His senses (Mark 3:20-21). Yet after Jesus has ascended into Heaven, there James is with the apostles devoting himself to prayer.

How did James move from being a skeptic, to a believer, devoted to prayer (Acts 1:14), to a leader in the church (Acts 12:17, 15:13), and then to a pillar of the church (Galatians 2:9)? What made the difference? I believe it was an encounter with the Living Christ. "He (Jesus) appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve...then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles."

An encounter with the Living Christ has the power to change everything - and it did.

In Acts 4:13 the Peter and John were brought before Annas and Caiaphas by the Sadducees. After listening to Peter talk, Acts records, "they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus."

These early church leaders were not extraordinary giants of the faith. In fact, many of them were uneducated and untrained - like me. I do not hold a degree from a prestigious university; I am not a CEOs of a Fortune 500 company. I wash dishes and cook dinner and spend many hours listening and talking with my children. In reality, I am sort of a 21st century female equivalent of a Galilean fisherman - a very ordinary person carrying out very ordinary responsibilities.

But these men, these uneducated and untrained men, had been with Jesus.

And the gospel still has the lifechanging power to transform lives today. I am an ordinary woman; I have ordinary responsibilities. But I pray that as others see and observe my life, they will say of me, "this woman has been with Jesus."