(Audio)
"Master, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you."
Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me?
How like Peter we are. It isn't just that we are all talk. We really believe our commitment to Jesus is martyr level. But when we are tested we see that we are just as ready to run and to deny Jesus as he is. We learn the hard way that we can't depend on ourselves. We discover our desire to preserve our own ego is much more deeply entrenched in us than we knew.
What are the specific ways in which we deny Jesus? What opportunities are we given to witness to him when we would prefer to simply blend in rather than be exposed as his followers? How often are we complicit in the systems of the world that trample over the poor and the innocent just so that we don't have to stand up and stand out?
So Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly."
The ideal of following Jesus to the cross is romantic and attractive. The reality is gritty and difficult. It can only be done at all if we rely on Jesus entirely for the grace his Holy Spirit provides.
For you are my hope, O LORD;
my trust, O God, from my youth.
On you I depend from birth;
from my mother's womb you are my strength.
Our feeble efforts need not be in vain. Judas and Peter were both guilty of betrayals. But Peter trusted in the mercy of Jesus above and beyond his own shame and failure. So too must we. The LORD does not reprove us so that we can hate ourselves and be discouraged. He reproves every son he receives so that we can be more perfectly his children, so that we can ever more perfectly fulfill the destiny he has for us.
Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
Yet my reward is with the LORD,
my recompense is with my God.
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