MARK 14:29
“Peter said to him, ‘Even though they all fall away, I will not.'”
James tells us that all boasting about future events is evil. We talk of these things that we’re going to do and goals we’ll achieve. We admire people that have strong wills and boast about their commitment to victory. We call it confidence. James, though, attacks this at its root and calls it evil boasting (James 4:13-16). And so it is.
Peter is full of passion. He’s the CEO everyone admires. He’s the football coach with the iron will. He’s the indomitable general. And, yet, we know how this ends and it ends as all such things end.
But wait, you say. Men of great conviction achieve great things. Yes…on earth…sometimes. We may hear of the CEO’s incredible pay but not of his divorce; we may watch the coach win the Super Bowl and miss his other failings. Just look at how Patton, that greatest of generals, died – not on a battlefield, but in a jeep accident. Or we look at the glory of men like Elvis, Michael Jackson or Prince and see that the highlights were only one side of the story.
In all, no man has power over the spiritual things, as Peter surely discovered.
This isn’t to say that men and women should be spineless, shiftless, and devoid of work ethic. But it is to say that Christians must remember that they can do nothing of their own power and yet all things through Christ. And these “all” things means God’s things. No Christian will succeed without the Lord’s blessing and, as in Peter’s case, we must make sure that our goals are indeed God’s goals or we labor in vain.
You see, our trouble is that we often don’t truly seek God’s will but intend to impose our own on Him. Jesus has recently told Peter that if he asks anything in His name it will be given to him but to ask in Jesus name means to ask according to His will. My, how we struggle with this! God will never grant something to the praying Christian that is contrary to His divine plan. We waste our energies when we kick against the goads as Paul did. This happens, of course, when we aren’t truly acquainted with God’s Word for it is there that He reveals Himself. A Christian who can’t think Biblically is weak in prayer because he doesn’t know God and will go with this request and that, with nary a worry about what God’s will is.
Notice how Peter has made up his mind. He doesn’t ask in humble submission what is God’s will; he boldly states his plan and refuses to consent to alternatives. He pledges death in the service of his vision. It was God’s grace and Jesus’ healing hand that stayed Roman swords that night or else Peter may have had his wish. How many prayers have we prayed that would have crushed us had God given us what we thought we wanted?
The contrast of this is Jesus’ prayer in the garden. Here he shows us in the nitty-gritty, with real stuff at stake, the meaning of “your Kingdom come, your will be done…” Jesus is powerful precisely because He wants God’s will only. Peter fails because he tries to accomplish Godly things on his own, without humility, and without checking his premises against God’s word. This is the surest way to failure and frustration – to go against God’s will and to press on under your own strength will exhaust our spirit and deplete our lives of peace and power. These two go hand-in-hand. The Christian that relies on God for all things is the one that knows His holy Word, reads it deeply and often, and meditates upon it. The Christian is not conformed to this world so the world might not think of him as very ambitious sometimes because he is meek and humble and waits on the Lord. Christians hunger and thirst, all right, but for God’s will to be done in their lives. The Christian knows that God’s will is perfect, not his/her own and though He may appear late in acting, He’s always right on time.
Christian confidence is wholly different than worldly self-assurance. The world says we should have self-esteem; the Bible says we are to love God with reverent awe and derive our worth from the fact that He is our Lord. The world says that we can do it; the Bible says that we can do nothing apart from Christ. The world says that you can do anything you set your mind to; the Bible says to set the mind on the Spirit, not the flesh. The world says that we should try and make ourselves great; the Word says that we should glorify the true and living God and revel joyously in the glory.
In the world we have great challenges. There are giants out there – mountains of issues, problems and great peril. But our God is a great God and compared to Him these are small giants, just like Joshua and Caleb saw. Every Christian must come to terms with this – must remember that the goal of life is faithfulness, not earthly success; it’s trust in God, not self. How do you know you’re on the right path? Do you boast of your wins, or God’s grace? And when there’s a trial, do you pray or do you scheme? To whom do you give the glory and to whom do you rely on? That’s the stuff of faith right there.
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