My heart was deeply moved by what I read today in the One-Year Bible.
When Peter said to Jesus, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” (Matthew 26:35), he had no intention of allowing his self-will to trump God’s will.
His intentions changed very rapidly, though, when it became clear that choosing Jesus meant choosing the harder road.
When push came to shove, Peter ran from his Savior.
His promise changed from holy to hollow.
Fear replaced faith.
And denial replaced determination.
It is one of the most tragic sequences in scripture, this episode recounting Peter’s denials of Christ.
What Peter did was terrible.
So why are we so drawn to reading about it and reflecting on it?
It’s because we all, in one way or another, have done the very same thing.
Not with the same scope of consequences for the Kingdom of God, but with the same sort of consequences for ourselves.
We claimed boldness for Christ and that we’d stand with Him at all times and in all circumstances.
But along came the threat of rejection or retaliation from those we valued but who didn’t value Jesus.
Or it was the threat of harm from people at work who could make our jobs miserable or even cause the paycheck to disappear.
It might have been the threat from a spouse who issued an ultimatum that we choose between his or her worldly values and the sanctified values of God.
It might have even been the threat of losing that opportunity for romance or for riches that we’d dreamed about for SO long and now, if we stayed faithful to Jesus, there would be no Carpe diem (“Seize the day”) for us.
We didn’t want to be at that intersection and yet there we were.
Blindly, we chose the path away from Jesus because we valued the world’s promises more than Christ’s.
Simply put, we sinned because we exchanged the Truth of God for a lie.
Our fears replaced our faith.
And it was tragic.
Amazingly, the same Jesus who continued loving Peter throughout this sequence of sin and shame — even to the point of dying for him on the cross — is the Jesus who loves us during our sequences of sin and shame.
In those moments when we fear the consequences of standing with Jesus, He still loves us.
In those moments when we said things that contradicted our prior confession of faith, He recalled the pain on the cross suffered in advance for our sin, yet He STILL loved us and interceded with the Father to send the Spirit to convict our hearts toward change.
When we were broken by guilt and shame and doubting as to how could Jesus still love us, the Holy Spirit brought us word that Jesus would not only forgive us if we returned to Him, but that He would restore us to the ministry of serving Him.
The story of Peter’s failure and restoration is our story of failure and restoration.
Over and over again.
Dear friend, Jesus is the only hope you have for turning tragedy into triumph, for turning a hollow life into a holy life.
Please make sure that you’ve confessed Jesus as your personal Savior, both before AND after your failure.
As always, I love you
Martin
