Luke 22:31-34, “31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:32. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. 33. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. 34. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”
Jesus had just told Peter that he would deny Him. I was reading this Scripture and it made me wonder what it would be like to have to experience that. As Christians we sometimes get so focused on worldly things that we forget about God. We have too many bills, too many relationship problems and too much want or need, so we start looking at our problem and find we are no longer looking at God. We “deny” Him sometimes daily. We find it easier than we want to think. But to have Jesus tell us that to our face?
The disciples are expecting Jesus to become their king. He is the long-awaited Messiah, come to save His people Israel. Their hopes are set on Him. Luke 19:37-38, 37 “And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; 38 Saying , Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest”
Could this be the day? Is the time now? All they had longed for and hoped for. And now Jesus has set his sight on Jerusalem. He comes riding in on a donkey and the disciples are going wild. Excitement fills the air.
But the next thing you know Jesus is telling Peter that he is going to deny the Lord and Savior, the very one Peter has put his hope in and has given up everything for. He swears he would never do such a thing. But circumstances happen that makes Peter do that very thing. And to make things even worse, right after Jesus tells Peter that, Jesus was crucified. Can you imagine what Peter must have felt?
You and I have found our self in the same place as Peter. We’ve put our hope in Jesus as our Savior, the one who is going to solve all our problems and make the world right again. But God doesn’t work as we want Him to. We find He isn’t our fairy godmother after all. The toad doesn’t turn into our prince and we never get to go to the ball like Cinderella. Instead, we find a God who is more concerned about our growing up and our character development and our becoming more like Him than He is in our wish list.
After denying Jesus, Jesus goes and gets himself crucified. He dies on Peter. He is no longer there for Peter. Peter can’t tell Him that he’s sorry. For several days Peter no longer has any hope. His mind had to remember every last moment he spent with Jesus. He goes over the last three years of his life and all that he felt toward Jesus; and now this. But Jesus is gone. Can you imagine the devastation Peter must have felt?
What if the story ended there? What if Peter had to spend the rest of his life, the rest of eternity with the regret of knowing he had denied the Lord and Savior?
After reading these Scriptures and thinking what it was like for Peter, I thought about a sermon I once heard about making that one choice that leads us out of God’s will. The pastor spoke about a young man who was passionate about God and thought God was calling him to be a missionary. But something happened and one day that same young man threw his Bible in the mud and walked away from God. A few short years later he committed suicide. He made a choice that forever separated him from God.
I thought about that and about the choice Peter made and how terrible it would be to make that one bad choice and then want to turn back to God only to find Him gone forever. We become so focused on the things of this world, our finances, our relationships, house repairs, car repair bills… even becoming resentful because things happen in our life and we blame God. And we make that one bad choice that could forever separate us from Jesus.
The disciples had no clue of what Jesus came to do. He came to die a horrible death to give us life. That made no sense to the disciples. In Mark 8:31 Jesus starts to tell the disciples what He came to do and Peter got so riled up, it says in Mark 8:32 that Peter rebuked Jesus. Bad mistake. In vs. 33 “But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.”
Jesus came to die on a Cross and be crucified. That would be hard for any one of us to imagine and believe. He came to give us life and to reconcile us to Him and to heal us and many other wonderful things. But we don’t understand His ways. Isaiah 55:8-9, 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
When Peter was told that Jesus had risen from the dead, can you imagine how he felt? Dare he believe? Dare he hope?
Before God brought me out of the abuse I had been in all my life, I couldn’t believe it could or would happen. I didn’t dare hope that I could really be set free from the abuse. But it did happen. It happened because Jesus died on that Cross. He gave me hope. The road hasn’t been easy, and nothing has happened the way I thought it should. And there were times I wanted to just say forget it. It would have been easy to make that one choice that would have separated me forever from Jesus.
Jesus is coming back. This time He is not coming back to die again. He did that once and for all. He is coming back to take His bride home forever. Peter made a horrible choice. Jesus knew there was something in Peter that had to be taken out of him, or put in him, in order for Peter to be able to do the work Jesus had for him. He does that to us too.
But there are choices we make that could forever separate us from Him. It is a choice that makes the difference between spending eternity in heaven or in hell. What is Your choice? So what if life didn’t turn out like you wanted it to. So what if your plans didn’t happen.
My life has been transformed by what Jesus did. It wasn’t the way I wanted Him to do things and I never expected how hard it can be. I couldn’t understand why He allowed the abuse. But I wouldn’t change my life with Him for anything in the world. I never would have chosen such abuse and for so long in my life. I wouldn’t have chosen the process He took me through. When God held out His hand to me, I took it because He was my last hope. Nobody else came to my rescue or seemed able to know what to do. Not even many Christians. Many times, they are hurting just as bad.
In order to do what He has called me to do, I must focus on Him. I cannot take Him for granted and think He will take care of everything and make it all turn out like I think it should. I have to make daily choices that will keep me close to Him or they could just as easily make me walk away from Him.
We are each responsible for the choices we make. Peter had a happy ending. The young man who I talked about earlier walked away from God and did not have a happy ending. In Lk. 22:3 “Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.” Judas, who betrayed Jesus did not have a happy ending. I desire above all else to have a happy ending, spending this life in a deepening relationship with God and spending eternity with him. My life is nothing like it was. Bad things still happen. Things aren’t the way I’d always like them to be. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and yet, depending on our one choice, we can have a happy ending.
What is your choice? If you desire to choose Jesus, ask Him to show you the plan He has for your life. If you need prayer, I will gladly pray for you. My email is Barbara@ehfm.org.
What if God was “no longer there”?
