“The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13, The Message).

The most notable feature of these disciples who were instrumental in turning the world upside down and seeing the early church explode in numbers wasn’t their intelligence or their charisma. It wasn’t their brand or their elevator speech. It wasn’t their strategy or plan or five-year goal.

It was the simple fact that people recognized that they had been with Jesus. For three years they had followed Him daily, eating when He ate, sleeping when He slept. For those three years they took in every single word He spoke, every miracle He performed, every place He went, every life He touched.

That’s what will transform your world. When people see and know that you have been with Jesus. More than knowing facts about Jesus and having all the correct doctrines about God the Son, what makes a world of difference to the people where you live, work, and play is that you know Jesus.

The only way to know Jesus is to spend time with Jesus. That comes through Scripture, prayer, meditation, and community. You learn Jesus in the community of believers because each will show you a facet of His character, like the different facets in a diamond.

That’s my prayer. I want to know Jesus that deeply and profoundly so that I can’t help but be transformed. In turn, I want people who know me to be transformed not by me or my words or acts, but by the Jesus they see in me.

May it be the desire of every believer to know Jesus a little more each and every day until we see Him face to face. Amen.