Wednesday, April 12  –  Blake Buller

Peter

Read Matthew 26:33-35 and 69-75

Reflection ~
God desires us to be all He created us to be. Throughout the Gospels, we see glimpses of the man He created Peter to be. He seemed to be an intense and emotional man. His name was originally Simon, but Jesus called him “Cephas” (Aramaic), or “Peter” (Greek), which both mean “rock”, and he was chosen by Jesus to be foundation of the early Church (Matt 16:18). Peter was not perfect by any means. He seemingly had a tendency to be impulsive and rash. One example of this occurred when he basically put his foot in his mouth at the Transfiguration of Jesus, before God, the Father, spoke down to Peter from heaven and basically told him to pipe down and listen to Jesus (Matt 17, Mark 9, or Luke 9). There was also the time he brandished a sword and hastily took a swipe at the high priest’s slave with it in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus was being betrayed by Judas and arrested by the Temple guards (John 18:1-11).

However, Peter was also bold, outspoken, passionate, and full of faith in God. He was the first person to boldly confess that Jesus was the Messiah, or the Christ, the Son of God (Matt 16:13-17). He’s also probably the only person in human history, besides Jesus, to have experienced what it’s like to walk on water, only made possible by his bold faith that Jesus would keep him from drowning when he got out of a boat, even in the midst of a massive storm (Matt 14:22-33).

We know from Scripture that the enemy of our souls desires to steal from us, to kill us, and to destroy us (John 10:10). The enemy desired to destroy Peter, as well. We see Jesus alluding to this at the last supper (Luke 22:31-32), before Peter pledges to never desert or deny Jesus, and to die for Him. After having made such a pledge, what must Peter have felt after he denied Jesus three times later that same night? Terrible guilt, shame, regret, heartache, and self-condemnation were probably a few of the emotions he felt. If I imagine myself in his situation, I know I would’ve felt those things. I also imagine this time must have been the lowest point in Peter’s life. Not only had his Savior, whom he’d put all his trust and hope in, been murdered, but Peter cowardly denied his relationship with Him, two of the three times to young, not-at-all-powerful or threatening, servant girls. He did the exact opposite of what he’d told Jesus he’d do the evening before, at what became known as the Last Supper.

Thankfully for Peter, after Jesus died and rose from the dead, He lovingly restored and challenged Peter to be the man He’d called him to be (John 21:1-17). Then, after restoring Peter, God used him powerfully. One place we see this is in Acts 2:1-41. At this point, Jesus had already ascended into heaven. Then, after waiting for at least several days, Peter and the Church were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Immediately afterward, Peter preached powerfully to a massive crowd of thousands of Jews from around the world living in Jerusalem at the time, and the Holy Spirit emboldened Peter to challenge the crowd to see their sin and their need for a savior, and to point them to Jesus as the answer to their problem.

Eventually, Peter would fulfill the promise he made to Jesus, as he was imprisoned and killed for Christ’s sake (John 21:18-19 & 2 Peter 1:14-15). Early church history tells us Peter died by crucifixion probably sometime between AD 67 and 70, potentially under the reign of the Roman emperor, Nero. As the tradition goes, apparently when Peter was crucified, he asked to be hung upside down because he thought himself unworthy to die in the same way his Savior did.

What can we learn from Peter’s life? Well, one thing we can learn is not to let the enemy use our past mistakes to condemn us. May we let God restore us, as Peter did, because we know that “…there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Secondly, we can learn to accept God’s loving challenge to us and calling to greater holiness, again as Peter did, because we know that “…God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Phil. 1:6). May we never let anyone or anything keep us from becoming the people God created and called us to be.

Prayer ~
Father, thank you that You don’t want us to remain as we are when we first give our lives to You, but that You desire us to grow and to become more like Your Son. Thank You that You’ve given us the Holy Spirit to help us do this, for we know we can do nothing without You and Your help. Help us to live lives that give You glory, honor, praise, and worship, like Peter did. Help us to lay down our lives for you, like he did. It’s the least we can do for you, when you’ve already done that for us. In Jesus’ name we ask these things, Amen.