Day 34: Denied

Read Luke 22-23

Have you ever thanked God that you weren’t around when the Bible was being written, so that your failures were not recorded for all people of all time to read about? Poor Peter was there and everyone knows about his colossal failure. Like Peter, we all have failed the Lord, even if our failures are not as widely known. When you fail the Lord, whether it is a colossal fall like Peter’s or even if it’s a lesser failure, you feel guilty, embarrassed, and depressed. If it’s a bad fall, you often wonder if God will ever use you again in His service.

Thank God that the Bible offers hope for those who have failed God. It does not leave us without a way out. Also, thank God that the Bible paints its heroes warts and all. It does not airbrush their blemishes from the record. It lets us see them as men and women like us, who struggled against the same weaknesses and temptations, but who recovered from their sins and failures by God’s abundant grace.

I don’t know how to rank failures, but Peter’s has to be one of the worst. To be the leader among the apostles, to boast that he would go to prison and death with Christ, and then to deny that he even knew Christ, was not just an average, everyday sort of failure! The fact that the Lord would restore Peter and use him on the Day of Pentecost and thereafter shows us His amazing grace.

In chapter 22 we see the popular story of Peter denying Christ, which in itself is betrayal. But later on we see repentance and restoration. Christ reaches out to him and Peter repents. As Christians we get in the habit of confession and prayer but often we come back to the same sin and habits that we "repented". Repentance is about whole heartedly surrendering the problem to Christ.

As Christians we know that we may fail or fall into sin but Christ celebrates the fact that we depend on him to get up and keep going, so don't give up your fight against temptation and trials but allow Christ to be the rock that you stand on.

- Justin Mathew