WATCHWORD:
54 So they seized him and led him to the high priest’s residence, and Peter followed at a distance. 55 The soldiers lit a fire in the courtyard and sat around it for warmth, and Peter joined them there. 56 A servant girl noticed him in the firelight and began staring at him. Finally she spoke: “This man was with Jesus!” 57 Peter denied it. “Woman,” he said, “I don’t even know the man!” 58 After a while someone else looked at him and said, “You must be one of them!” “No sir, I am not!” Peter replied. Luke 22:54-58
Meditation:
I Do Not Know That Man!
Have you ever said that? You know, denying that you know someone. Maybe you made that denial for reasons that later you regretted? How about this, you’re asked a certain question and maybe you don’t respond directly to it, but you evade it or you duck it, whatever you did you didn’t answer it. Maybe the question was, ‘Do you believe in life after death and why’ and you didn’t feel prepared to respond to the ‘why’ part of that query.
I do not know that man, was Peter begging off of the accusation that he was with Jesus. Poor Peter, he was neither prepared, nor equipped under those circumstances to defend the truth that he was a follower of Jesus. He had much to learn and to regret, before he could accept the love of Christ that would prepare him to become the rock on which Christ would build his church.
We do not need to dig too deeply before before we find evidence that Jesus has built his church on the strength of many who, at one point were cowards, some who outwardly opposed his teachings, even to the point of killing church leaders; before they were strengthened to lead. And yet here we are, you and I, hesitant to take a stand, to step up and say, why, yes, I do believe in life after death. Yes I do believe Jesus is not only the Messiah but he is God. Why, yes, I do believe in the virgin birth, but mostly I place my faith on nothing less than the blood of Jesus shed on Calvary for me, dying for me and the resurrection to prove beyond any doubt that he is God. Not just the God of the resurrection, more than that, he is the God of creation, he is the God that created me.
But let’s be honest, it often depends on where we are asked that question, the circumstances surrounding it, and what we are being asked to do. I think about so many who were caught up in extermination camps, whose faith was shaken and then strengthened by the reality of their circumstance. I think of 16 year old Rachal Scott, looking down the barrel of a gun held by another teenager demanding that she deny Christ or die. She refused to deny her Lord. Could we?
You may think, that could never happen to me. But we don’t know that. We may pray that it doesn’t happen to us. We may pray for the strength to rise up under those circumstances and say, yes I believe. I think that’s probably where we all are. I think that is exactly where the test of our faith comes. If we would learn to worship God, even under the most difficult of circumstances, he will change them for the better, if he chooses to do so. Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we may try to do today. The reality is that Jesus, our Lord, is dethroned more deliberately by well-meaning Christians than by anything in the world. We pray that we have the strength not to be one of those. Amen.
I Am a Child of God:
I am in Christ. I am a child of the king. Jesus is Lord of my life. I have submitted my will to him. Through the blood of Jesus, I have been forgiven, justified, sanctified, and delivered from every evil attack. My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed, and made hole through the blood of Jesus. I am not alone. I am not defeated. I need not fear. The one who called me is faithful. I choose to lift my heart and voice and thanks for his grace and mercy to me. The joy of the Lord is my strength! In Jesus name, Amen.
