Denying Jesus

 We should always stay close to our friends and be glad that we have a relationship with them. We should never want to hurt our friends in any way, since they care for us and support us. One of the worst things we can do to a friend is to deny that they are our friend in front of other people. That would be a huge insult to our friend, and it would probably bring an end to our friendship.

Jesus had a close friendship with His disciples. This was especially true of His relationship with Peter. However, Peter ended up denying he knew Jesus when he was in fear of his life. (Mark 14:72) Immediately a rooster crowed a second time; and Peter remembered the remark Jesus had made to him, "Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times." Then, Peter hurried on and began to weep. Peter was crushed by his denial of Jesus.

Let's not be too hard on Peter for his denial of Jesus. I am sure that all of us have done a similar thing when we were around other people and something was said about Jesus or Christianity. We either stayed silent when we should have spoken up, or we accepted what was said, so we would not be looked down upon by the other people. In effect, we denied knowing Jesus as our friend or our Lord. That shows a serious lack of faith.

However, let's remember what happened to Peter after his failure here. He was restored by Jesus, and He was used to preach on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and 3,000 people were saved. This is not to condone his sin or our sin when we have denied Jesus. It is simply to say, if we weep over our sin, and we confess it to Jesus, He will forgive us, and our faith can grow, so He can still use us to confess Him before others.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Mark 16 and Luke 1-3.