I’ve always liked Peter. He seems so relatable, so human, and so like us. He swore to Jesus that he would never desert Him, that he would stand strong in his loyalty, even if it meant dying (Mark 26-31). I think many of us, if told directly by Jesus that we would desert Him, would claim the same thing. It’s easy to say we’d do something if we aren’t ever put in a situation in which we actually have to do the thing we claim we would do. Many times we are big talkers, and we are hopeful that we can do the things that we say we will do, but oftentimes we fall short. We say that we would run into a burning building to save someone else. We say we’d take a bullet for a friend. We say we’d have opened up our house to Mary and Joseph if we had been there. We say we’d never abandon our faith….but when it comes right down to it, a lot of us end up doing just as Peter does: fall short and fail miserably. On the night before Jesus was crucified, Peter, who adamently claims he would never abandon or deny Jesus, does just that. In a moment of desperation and fear, Peter pretends to not know Jesus so that he can save himself from the pain that might come to him if he is found to be connected to Jesus. In an attempt to save his earthly life, he denies the one who can give eternal life. Now, we can’t hardly blame Peter for this. I can almost guarentee that I would have done this too, though I certainly would have been ashamed of it. It’s like when your mom or dad asks you if you hit your brother, and although you know you did it, you quickly lie to save yourself. It might work to get you out of the pinch, but that twinge inside of you remains, and you know the truth of what really happened and what you’ve done to your character. After Peter denied Jesus, Mark tells us that he broke down and wept (Mark 14:72). Oh, can’t you just imagine his pain, his humiliation, and his sadness as he realizes what he’s done. But the truth is that we all fall short of what God’s expectation is for us. We all fail, and sometimes it’s even as harshly as Peter’s failure. But what happens next is even more exciting. Peter’s life is entirely changed after this trial. He doesn’t take this experience and think, “Man, I guess I’m not worthy to be a follower of Jesus after all. I guess I should just give up and find a new religion.” He changes. He grows. He learns from what mistake he had made and becomes an even better follower of Jesus because of it. When Jesus rises from the dead, we hear him remind Peter of his denial (John 21: 15-19). Three times he asks Peter, “Do you love me?” and three times, Peter answers him, each time feeling the hurt and sting of being asked more than once. But Jesus’s purpose was not to embarass Peter or to push him away. Instead, Jesus’s prompting helped push Peter to become one of the most fearless proclaimers of the Christian faith in the early church. Without this denial, without this guidance from Jesus, Peter may not have played as critical of a role as he did in the development of the early Christian faith. Peter’s transformation is even more evident in his own stories. 1 Peter pushes the idea that we need to love one another, regardless of what happens to us or how we are treated. He reminds us that suffering for Jesus brings us closer to being like Jesus; our trust can be built even stronger (a big change from his experience the night before Jesus was crucified). Peter grew through his trials. When it came down to it, he denied Jesus. He abandoned what Jesus had told him--and he knew Jesus personally! If Peter denied Jesus, it’s bound to happen that we probably at some point in our lives might too. And if we’re not denying, we’re probably misrepresenting Jesus, speaking poorly about Jesus, or maybe lying about our faith in Jesus...We are human, and those things are going to happen in a world of humanity. However, the bigger and more important question is what do we do with it next? What do we do with that struggle? Peter, though he had an embarrassing and humiliating experience through his denial of Christ, talked about his experience and his transformation so that others might learn from what he did. We all have these experiences too; are we sharing them with others so that we can glorify God? Are we sharing our trials, our mistakes, our humiliating events of our past so that we can show what God can do if we turn those things over to Him? We always have the choice to serve God and show His love and the power of his forgiveness. By sharing our experiences, we can glorify God even more. Another disciple of Jesus's also fell short. The story of Judas committing suicide in his sorrow after realizing what he'd done by selling out Jesus's life for money is one of the most heartbreaking ones of the bible. If Judas had only remembered God's love...If Judas had took his failure and grew from it...I have no doubts God and Jesus would have given full forgiveness and would have used Judas's life for good. But, he remained so caught up in his own grief and anguish, he stopped seeing the light of hope from God and refused the love and forgiveness unconditionally given to him. His failure overcame him, and because of it, he lost his life. Suffering, trials, sadness, humiliation, and falling short of God's expectation are bound to happen. But we can use Peter as an example of what to do in that situation. We can choose: Do we take our experience and live out our failure like Judas or like Peter? Do we give up on it all, or do we try to grow, with God's help, in our faith? Where do we go next? “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the glory forever and ever.” 1 Peter 5:10-11 -Sadie
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Sadie JensenI'm a follower of Christ seeking to know Him and live like Him. If you'd like to learn more, read my blog post about my faith journey here. Archives
November 2018
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