SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/3/2021 9:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Peter’s Right Experiences”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
2:10a
Message of the
verse: “The first, Simon, who is
called Peter”
Today we move on in looking at the person Peter as we
begin to look at his right experiences, as this is the second element he possessed
in preparing for leadership. The Lord
brought into Peter’s life all the experiences that were necessary in order to develop
his leadership ability.
The first thing that the Lord did was to give Peter wondrous
revelations. This can be seen in what is
a very famous section of Matthew’s gospel as Peter confesses that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of the Living God found in Matthew 16:16-17. Then there is another passage that it seems
that the Lord has caused me to look at several times in the last few months and
that comes from John’s gospel, chapter six where Jesus is talking about eating
His flesh and drinking His blood, and after that many of His disciples stopped
walking with Him, but Peter answered the Lord’s question as to whether or not
the Twelve would continue to follow Him.
John 6:66 states “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal
life.” Jesus was teaching in this
section of John what the cost of discipleship is about as He used that figure
of speech.
What Jesus was doing was transforming Peter by letting
him know that God wanted to use his mouth to proclaim the great delivering
truth of the gospel, which we know that later on Peter would be the first to
give out the message of the gospel on the day of Pentecost found in Acts
chapter two. Acts 2:14 says “Men of
Judah, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give
heed to my words” and then Peter will give out the gospel message to that very
large crowd in Jerusalem.
Next, Peter was given great honor and reward. We have to go back to the 16th
chapter of Matthew to see this great reward that Jesus gives to Peter, after he
confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God we then read “"I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this
rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” Matthew
16:18. As mentioned the Lord used Peter
to preach the opening sermon of the church age, and He also used Peter at the
house of Cornelius, who was the very first Gentile convert to Christianity.
MacArthur writes “All of the apostles
opened the door to the kingdom as they preached the gospel of salvation, and
every time any man of God preaches Christ, he, too, unlocks those kingdom doors
to let men in.”
Thirdly, Peter experienced great
rebuke, and because of the things that have been written about what happened in
that 16th chapter of Matthew I want to quote again from MacArthur’s
commentary. “A short while after Jesus
honored Peter by the declaration just mentioned above, Peter himself proved
that our Lord’s reference could not have been to him, since he was then
anything but a solid foundation on which Christ could build His church. Perhaps feeling proud and overconfident as
the leading disciple, he demonstrated that his mouth could be used by Satan as
well as by God. When the Lord ‘began to
show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on
the third day,…Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God
forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen
to You’’’ But his severe rebuke of Jesus brought an even more sever rebuke from Jesus: ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are
not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’ (Matt. 16:21-23).”
One of the great dangers of
leadership is not knowing its limits. We
can see from history that there were times when great leaders, who at first,
were great servants, but then because of the great power they had began to “Think
more highly of themselves than they should,” rather than understand it was the
Lord who actually put them in power began to cause a great deal of problems on
those they were supposed to be leading. MacArthur adds “When Peter began
elevating his own position and understanding, he found himself serving Satan
rather than God. Great potential for
being used by God also brings great potential for being used by Satan.”
We have two more elements to look at
and the fourth one is Peter experienced what might be called great rejection,
not by Jesus but of Him. I think that
you can figure out where we are going with this one as it happened at the end
of the Lord’s Supper, the first communion service if you may. We know the story of how Peter said that he
would never forsake Jesus and then Jesus told him that he would deny he knew
His name three times before the rooster crowed in the morning. Peter said that he would die before he denied
the Lord. We know the story of how Peter
did deny the Lord those three times and then left and wept bitterly for what he
had just done. As Peter denied the Lord
three times, he progressively denied Him more vehemently each time.
MacArthur describes the fifth
element: “Fifth, Peter experienced a
great recommissioning. When Jesus
confronted him with the lack of love, Peter assured the Lord three times that
he did indeed love Him, and Jesus three times reinstated him and charged him to
care for His flock. Jesus had not given
up on Peter. He reassured His faltering
disciple that his calling still stood and commanded him again just as He had in
the beginning, ‘Follow Me!’ (John 21:15-19).”
That last statement of what I call bookends of Peter’s life with the
Lord I don’t think that I have ever noticed before.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I can see many things in the life of Peter that
at times I practice, and like Peter I am always thankful for new beginnings
from the Lord for the successful Christian life is a series of new beginnings.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to continue to give me new beginnings when I fail Him.
8/3/2021 10:23
AM
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