Hey, welcome back to the morning mindset. You know, one of those things I love about

digging into the scripture is that we have the opportunity to learn from the stories of those who have gone before us.

They are real people, people who existed in the world just like we do,

people who had trials and circumstances that are not all that unlike ours, though they were

many, many centuries ago.

And it is helpful to look at the lessons they have learned.

And the reason I'm bringing all of that up

is because today we are going to start a new journey

with a new character from the scripture,

someone who lived actually at the time of Jesus, the

apostle Peter. We are going to begin a journey today through the book of

First Peter. Now First Peter is one of my favorite New Testament books I believe because Peter is just such a normal guy.

If you remember the history, Peter was a fisherman. He was a blue collar worker of his day if you think of it that way.

Jesus met him and called him to follow and Peter is one of those guys who left everything,

seemingly on the spot immediately

and began following Jesus.

And as we look at Peter's life and the story of his discipleship as he followed Jesus around the area of Galilee,

Peter's one of those guys who I can really relate to because he seemed to have this tendency to put his foot in his mouth.

You know for a while it seemed like he was unable to look before he leapt, he would speak before he thought through what he was going to say, and even in times when it seems like what he had to say was a value. He was missing some broader or deeper perspectives and Jesus would point that out to him.

Let me give you some examples and I'm doing this just so that you can get a grasp for who this guy Peter was.

Peter is the guy who said to Jesus when it was time to go back to Jerusalem and Jesus was saying he would be betrayed and

killed.

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