Times of Refreshing

I think that one of the greatest or at least most appealing lines in the Bible is in Acts 3 where Peter calls people to repent so that "times of refreshing may come". Who doesn't want to have times that are refreshing. It makes you think of diving into a cool pool on a hot summer's day or drinking that great cold drink after a hard run--refreshing. What I'm not sure I caught before is that the refreshing has at least two parts to it. First comes repentance which brings about a blotting out of our sins--refreshing! Next comes a refreshing new life by listening to and following the words of Jesus. Peter in this masterful message connects Jesus to Moses and the prophet that Moses said would be coming that the people were to listen to him (check out that at the transfiguration 9.35 that the Father makes this same connection when he tells us to "listen to him" i.e. Jesus). The cool thing is that when Peter uses this reference from Deuteronomy 18.15-19 is that he connects Jesus with the teachings of the Torah and the giving of the law on Sinai. Here's what it says in Dt. 18 15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' 17And the LORD said to me, 'They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him."
In making this connection Peter wants us to see that Jesus is the new Torah or God's new word to his people telling them how to live. Following that path brings times of refreshing, ignoring the path means being cut off from the refreshing that Jesus' teaching brings. Of course, for al of us this has a struggle to it--we actually have to believe (which means both saying with our mouths and doing with our lives) that Jesus' teaching is the way to a refreshing life. The second part of the struggle is to spend enough time studying the teaching of Jesus to discover that refreshing life. I know that I'm not alway in either of those places.