Peter’s Denial

Wednesday, August 24

Peter’s Denial

Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” All the disciples said the same thing too. Matthew 26:35

Some days we may be enthused, through the power of the Holy Spirit, by certain scriptures which encourage complete surrender to God. Perhaps it is a book that we have read, our notes from Sunday’s sermon, or we have heard or a song and the lyrics inspires us to respond to the Lord wholeheartedly. On those days it may be easy to say, “Lord I will do anything for You, I will go anywhere” or sing the song ‘I surrender all’, but what does that really mean for me today?

Am I really willing to do anything, go anywhere, lay down all that is precious to me in order to be obedient to the Lord? It’s easy for us to read the account written in Matthew 26 and think ‘How could Peter deny Jesus?’ but we too are guilty of doing the same thing.

We can set high standards for ourselves with our Bible teaching, but the difficulty comes in applying this in our own lives today.  Simon Peter struggled with this when he promised Jesus that he would even die for Him. ‘Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same’ (Matthew 26:33-35). Yet, as we know, just a few hours later, he denied he even knew Jesus.

Maybe we say, “Lord I will do anything for You except …” I wonder which particular stumbling block we may be facing. We can all set restrictions, maybe sub-consciously, on our service to the Lord. We perhaps have fears about certain situations and these form an invisible barrier in our lives. Maybe its going to a particular region to be used by God. Maybe it is working with a certain person or a group of people, doing a particular job, standing up and praying out loud, or giving away our riches.

We soon discover that we are not always as whole-hearted for the Lord as we hoped. In fact, our decision to go comes with conditions. We may want to set conditions on our service or on our roles. But is that true service?

The truth remains, when we are able to let go of our “anything but …” and trust God, we will always find blessing.