But the paradoxically sad and happy choice is that love
itself must always be chosen if it is to be real. Free-will contains within it the choice to
screw up. And if we are to love God from
the purest choice to do so, we must by nature be exposed to the choice not to
love God. Or as so many of us are
intimately familiar with, to forget we love God, long enough to embrace some
selfish choice that wreaks in its wake waves of pure destruction that reach out
and destroy many. When we remember our
love for God, we come crawling back to Him on bended knee, begging for
forgiveness, that even though granted, cannot change the truth of what we said or
did, or offer healing to those we have wounded by word or deed. Sometimes the destruction we cause must be
born by those we claim most to love.
Wounds that cut deeply into the hearts and lives of others. Pain that “our truth” is responsible for, for
of a truth what we have chosen to say or do echoes on long past our
forgiveness. For it to be different, our
truth must be different, or choice a better one. For the pain we cause not to exist, the
choice to avoid temptation itself would be the only pathway that might have
been chosen. But again, that was not the
truth we chose.
And much of the suffering of our lives is caused and borne
by our own selfish choices. Whether that
pain is known only to us, or whether we have made sure it would be shared by others
we claim to love, our choice to love self, winds up coming at the expense of
the happiness and joy of the ones we say we love. And sometimes our choices take a long while
to bear fruit. Take for example the
choices we make of how we manage our health.
We ingest things that will do us in.
Smoking, drinking, vaping, drugs whether recreational or even sometimes
by prescription, the chemicals we take in do have an effect. And we think these aggregate choices, even if
they go bad, hurt only ourselves. But
tell that to the parent who must watch his or her child contend with the cancer
that consumes their baby of any age.
Tell that to the wife who must become full-time caretaker of the husband
whose health has collapsed so spectacularly he is now only one tenth the man he
used to be. Tell that to the baby who is
born with so many complications that the first few years of their lives will be
spent in agony, all for the sake of the “moderation” we thought would be fine
to partake of while pregnant. Small
daily choices with our health that bear fruit over time, some of it very ugly
fruit.
And we all blame God for the results of these things. For it is easier to blame God than to take
personal accountability for the choices we have made when confronted with temptation
of any sort. Jesus used to call this
phenomenon “fall into temptation”. Those
words haunt our experience from Lucifer who fell in heaven along with a third
of the angels at that time up to today with you and me. Now Lucifer is called Satan. And those “fallen” angels are referred to as
demons. Adam and Eve “fell” in the
garden of Eden breaking trust with God, and condemning us to lives of slavery
to evil, making evil our first choice instead of our last one. And even when the most critical moments in
the ministry of Jesus come along, he refers again to the sin that becomes our
truth back to its earliest incarnation when it was still the temptation Jesus
would wish us not to fall into.
But there is another player in the story of our lives, he
too is invisible to our natural sight, but ever since his own fall, he has done
nothing but lay out stumbling blocks for each of us. Satan puts in our path a series of stumbling
temptations in order for us to fall so hard, and so often, we stop looking back
to God to fix any of it. We just reach a
point where we start throwing out our own catch phrases like “this is life” and
“what are you going to do”, having come to a point where we just accept sin in
our hearts and lives without the hope of ever seeing it go away forever. We accept the damage of sin as just being
“natural” and start focusing so much on the sin, we begin to completely ignore
that it all began in an earlier stage of temptation we might have avoided. Jesus would have us avoid the temptation
altogether. It is what our prayers to
God are all about (or supposed to be).
Jesus would have us pray to avoid temptation itself, rather than have to
pray for the forgiveness we will need if confronted by temptation we so often
fall into.
Satan would sift us as wheat, trying to discard any signs of
God in our hearts, and harden us only into the chaff that can be blown away by
the wind, having little value to anyone else, ultimately even to
ourselves. Satan would not just
encourage our selfishness, he will take active measures to make the “selfish
choice” the “easy choice”, the “sensible or logical choice”, the “lesser of two
evils choice”. But to avoid falling in
to any one of these temptations, our prayers should center on avoiding them
altogether. And while Satan may wish to
sift us as wheat, Jesus has other plans for our faith. For when we believe, we can begin to have
trust. And as our trust grows, we can
submit and follow God, even when it makes no sense to us at all. Follow even when it does not feel warm and
fuzzy. Follow, because we know that our Shepherd
leads us to where we should be, a place always better than anything we could
have imagined on our own.
Luke gives us a little context of these experiences in his
gospel in the 22nd chapter of his letter to his friend about what we
believe and why. For this section we
will focus on Peter’s denial texts and come back to study the others in our
next examination. It begins in verse 31
saying … “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: [verse 32] But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and
when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” There is so much here to unpack. First Satan wants us all. Not because we are special to him, or mean
anything to him. He could care less
about any of us. We are however a means
to an end. Because Satan knows that God
loves each of us like precious little children, when Satan can hurt or destroy
us, ultimately it is God whose heart will suffer the most. For each of us was created precious and
unique for all of time and space, never to be repeated or replaced. So when God must bear witness to our demise,
God loses something that can never be replaced again. A devastating loss of love rejected, but a
choice our free-will demands if love is to ever be a real choice. Still, the pain of that rejection will
forever be keenly felt. And the witness
of our demise, long before the merciful fires of hell that forever put out our suffering
will end it all; our torture having preceded all of that. Torture brought on by the choices we make,
the sins we embrace, and the selfishness we choose that spreads our pain around
like ripples of water in a pond when you throw a large stone in the still waters.
Satan would sift us as wheat, and what is his first and
perhaps only target – our faith. For
this is what Jesus prays for to counter the impact of satanic desires. Jesus prays that Peter’s faith fails not. Jesus does not pray for Peter’s perfection,
have you ever wondered about that? Why
not just remove any desire Peter has to sin within him? The answer; because Peter has not asked Him
to. And frankly, Peter does not even
understand what a request like that would mean to every aspect of his
life. Peter does not trust enough for
something like that. He is not at that
stage of his life or of his faith. And
something like that must be Peter’s choice.
Jesus even identifies all of this as He plainly states that Peter is
still not converted. What does that
mean? It means it is possible to
“believe” in Jesus, as being our Savior, our Messiah, as the Son of God, and
still remain unconverted as Peter clearly was from the point of view of
Jesus. What was still missing; a heart
that understands its need. Peter did not
see himself this way. Peter saw himself
as strong enough to meet any temptation, and ready for anything that would
come. Peter was independent, not fully
dependent, and that is how he saw himself, and what prevented him from being
fully converted. Peter still sees sin as
a choice we can meet and choose the better of.
Most Christians still believe this is the case in their own lives.
Too many of us modern Christians still think we face sin as
some sort of choice we can meet and make the right choice against. We treat it like picking some sort of
vegetables with our dinner. Pick the
potatoes and we have made the right choice, pick the Brussel sprouts and we
have fallen into sin again. Particularly
easy choice for me, I hate Brussel sprouts.
But that is not what sin is like, or how it comes. Sin is about selfishness, and we have 6000
years of selfishness ingrained in our very DNA.
You don’t put a tray of powered cocaine ready for ingestion in front of
a cocaine addict and they just tell him to “say no”. If the addict is going to “say no”, he needs
to avoid that scene altogether. He needs
to be 200 miles away from that scene.
Ideally under the control of someone else. Like say in your car, with you driving
through the countryside, where there is no cocaine around for at least 200 miles. That is avoiding temptation. Not being there. But because we see sin as nothing more than a
choice between potatoes = good, and Brussel sprouts = bad, we treat it as if we
have perfect control over the choice we will make and can avoid sin by shear
force of will. And so we keep God out of
the process of sin avoidance, thinking just like Peter we can handle sin on our
own, and then failing miserably to prove we could not.
Look closely at Peter’s response to Jesus as Luke continues
in verse 33 saying … “And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee,
both into prison, and to death.”
Peter is proud. Proud of his own
faith. Peter thinks he is ready to be
the number two leader in this kingdom, superior to all the others, and not
ashamed to show it out loud. Peter makes
this declaration fully believing it is true.
How sad. We all know it is
not. His actions are about to prove
that. But Peter cannot be converted
until his heart is completely broken on the anvil of God’s love. While Peter thinks he can defeat sin with
pride, he cannot defeat sin at all. That
is like handing an addict heroin in order to fight the cocaine addiction, wrong
tool altogether. And while distance and
lack of opportunity may provide the addict no chance to screw up, they do
nothing to free the addict from his base desire to get high. To accomplish that – only Jesus can, only if
we let Him, only if we trust Him to do that very thing recognizing our
desperate need. Even then, it still does
not mean once freed we are ready to run right back into the drug house to go
witness. It does mean though that only
Jesus can free us, nothing else can, and especially nothing in us in any way,
least of all a belief we can simply choose our way out of sin. While Peter thinks he can choose to be sin
free, he is NOT READY to help his brethren.
Notice that Jesus says, only AFTER Peter is converted, for
him to help his brethren. The specific
word Jesus uses is for Peter to “strengthen” his brethren. How is he to do that. Perhaps the same way Jesus is trying to strengthen
Peter, by praying for him, by loving him, by pointing out the folly of
self-reliance as it relates to the gospel.
It is the pride of Peter, even pride in his own faith and choices, that
keeps Peter from being able to strengthen his brethren, and keeps Peter’s heart
an unconverted one. Still unconverted,
even after performing miracles, and spreading the gospel, and being with Jesus
every day personally for over three years.
If Peter could be unconverted after all this time, who are we to say we
have long since been converted and are ready for anything that comes. We forget.
Satan wishes to sift us as wheat, and only in our absolute dependence
upon Jesus will we find a change in the addict’s heart and desires. Not in the pride of what we might choose when
faced with a temptation to fall into.
Jesus hands Peter a lesson in reality as Luke continues in
verse 34 saying … “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
reveals that the current day will not even end before Peter denies even knowing
who Jesus is, not once, but three different times. Imagine what a blow to Peter’s pride this
declaration from Jesus must have been.
How humiliating this must have been to be so public, in front of all the
other disciples. But pride must be
broken. In all its forms pride remains a
sin. It is only a different drug of
choice, not the absence of one, and certainly not a tool to use when combating
other sins. So to break it, Peter must
suffer a series of crushing blows to it, until there is no pride left in him.
Skipping down to verse 54 (we will cover the other verses in
our next examination), Luke tells us how the words of Jesus are fulfilled … “Then took they
him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter
followed afar off. [verse 55] And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of
the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. [verse 56] But a certain
maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said,
This man was also with him. [verse 57] And he denied him, saying, Woman, I
know him not. [verse 58] And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou
art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. [verse 59] And about the
space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this
fellow also was with him: for he is a Galilaean. [verse 60] And Peter
said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake,
the cock crew. [verse 61] And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter
remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock
crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. [verse 62] And Peter went out, and wept
bitterly.”
Did Jesus force Peter into any of this? No.
Did Jesus want Peter to have to suffer this crushing defeat? No.
But Peter’s pride had to be broken, and Peter put himself on this
path. When confronted with the least
temptation, to be identified as one of the group that was with Jesus, Peter
denied that. Peter denied even knowing
Jesus while Jesus was undergoing the worst night of His life here on
earth. When Jesus most needed the love of
those who followed Him, Peter was nowhere to be found, or rather, he was 20
yards away denying he even knew his Lord.
Upon realizing Peter had fallen, not once, but three times over a short
space of time – Peter left weeping bitterly.
Those were not quiet tears. That
was public wailing. That is not
something men do, at any age. Men are
always trying to hide our pain. When we
reveal our pain, we make ourselves vulnerable, and our pain is usually only
increased. But here was Peter weeping
and wailing as he carries himself staggering through the morning dawn over
Jerusalem. People looking upon this
broken man, probably figuring him for drunk, or having a wife who left
him. But no wife could bring him comfort
now. In fact, his own wife, may have been
already with Jesus following as close as any of the women were allowed to
follow. She may have been steadfast in
her own faith, while her husband was broken from what he had done.
This was the sifting time.
All Satan need do is break the faith of Peter, instead of seeing God
break the pride of Peter. For in the
mind of Peter they were one in the same.
But in the mind of God, they were not.
Faith was about not only the knowing of Jesus, or believing in Jesus,
but in trusting Jesus with our salvation.
Allowing Jesus to remake us. And
following the very prayers of Jesus to see our faith strengthened and to avoid
temptation altogether. Satan wanted to
blend pride into all of that. Satan
wanted Peter to see his own faith as one in the same as his pride as a
Christian and a Jew. Chosen people,
chosen disciple, and proud to be both.
Proud to have gone to Temple.
Proud to have been so close to Christ.
So if pride were to be broken, Satan tempts Peter to just go ahead and
throw faith right in there with it. Is
it any different today? How many
Christians who hold to conquering sin by choice finally one day reach a point
where they see that just does not work.
No matter how hard they try, they still want things they should not
want. Pride and choice and self-reliance
have done nothing to damper appetite for sin they cannot even explain.
And so upon reaching the realization that sin is still with
us, the modern Christian just gives up on ever getting rid of sin. We change our doctrine to allow for sin as if
it just OK. God forgives it, so why
bother trying to get rid of it, we know that does not work anyway. Since sin is impossible to get rid of, and
God forgives, let’s just not worry about sin, go ahead and live our lives, and
know God will forgive us in the end. All
of this might be true, except for the fact, that we are doing it wrong. We, like Peter, are relying upon our pride,
and our self-reliance, and our own choices to defeat sin. We are like the addict staring at the tray of
cocaine attempting to just say no. That
is not how sin gets defeated. We must
have our pride broken. We must come to
see sin as the addict/slavery relationship it is. And we must learn to fully rely upon Jesus to
remove the sin from us, as we trust Him, and allow Him to do so. Our role is not a passive one. We must actively choose to depend upon Jesus
crying unto Him as a dying man might do in times of peril. For it is deadly times of peril we are
in. We must separate our faith from our
pride. Having a fully dependent faith
upon Jesus does not make faith weak, it makes it stronger than steel. Having faith in ourselves is what is no
stronger than rice paper. We were not
meant to defeat sin. We were meant to
cling to Jesus, following behind the only One who can defeat sin within us.
Jesus could have made that night go a completely different
way for Peter. But the pride of Peter
would not allow Jesus to change what was bound to happen. Pre-converted Peter still clung to his own
pride. Post-converted Peter was not too
embarrassed to weep in the streets openly.
No pride was left in Peter post this horrible trauma of crisis of faith
and pride. Pride had to be killed. But the prayers of Jesus prevailed in that
the faith of Peter was preserved in spite of all of it. Faith preserved in spite of the worst
spiritual failure in the life of Peter.
Peter died upside down on the cross at his own request long after this
knowing full well, the pain of a martyr’s death had nothing on the denial of
his own Lord in Jesus’ greatest moment of need.
Nothing was worse than that. And
so the faith of Peter survived, while the pride of Peter was crushed. Peter would still suffer from bouts of it
later in life. But every time pride
reared its ugly head, Jesus was faithful to show Peter the error in his
thinking, or in his loving of others.
That is how sin is meant to be defeated or avoided – in trusting to see
Jesus work that transformation in us.
Satan may still desire to sift you as wheat. Your life may have great pain in it, from
choices you embraced, or from the choices of others. But the prayers of Christ were not just for
Peter, they remain for you. To preserve
your faith, to grow your trust, to crush your pride, to see you learn how to
really love others. This transformation
of who you are, can only be done by Jesus.
And Jesus longs to bring it to you.
Will you let Him? Will you place
your life at Jesus’ feet, and give Him the “all” of who you are? For it will never be your choice that defeats
sin, but His transformation in you that sees the sin in you disappear, now and
forever, until choosing Jesus, and choosing right, become simply natural to who
you are, both here and in the world to come.
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