BETRAYED

 

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22:61-62

 

If you’re over twenty, you’ve probably had occasion to be betrayed—or you may have betrayed someone close to you. That sense of injustice, of deception, of disloyalty can hardly be matched be any other wound. How can someone who identified as a friend cause so much grief?

When we think of Jesus’ betrayal, we typically look at Judas, but I believe the actions of Peter inflicted greater suffering on our Lord. Jesus knew from the beginning that he would be betrayed—prophecy had revealed this long before his birth. He well knew Judas’ character and failings. But Peter, the one who had acknowledged his divinity (Matt. 16:16); who, in all four gospels had sworn he would go with Jesus to death; Peter, his dear friend and part of the inner circle, was least expected to deny his Friend.

The pain was inflicted, not just once, but three times. Obviously, Peter was thinking of his own wellbeing, knowing that Jesus was already facing execution. But I doubt that he was thinking of Jesus at all – this one who said repeatedly that he’d die with his Friend. And then we see Peter, stunned out of his own self-interest, as he glances up and notices that Jesus has heard and seen his betrayal (Luke 22:61, 62). And he went out and wept bitterly.

I hate injustice—especially when I’m the target. Betrayal hurts. We expect those we care about or with whom we’re associated to treat us with kindness and deference, and then life surprises us with betrayal. BETRAYAL IS A PART OF LIFE in this human, unredeemed world, but Jesus showed us how to deal with the pain and rise above it.

• ADDRESS THE PROBLEM. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared on the sea shore and called Peter aside. Three times—equal to the number of Peter’s betrayals—Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. Jesus, knowing all things, knew the answer, but he wanted Peter to reaffirm those commitments that he had made before the time of testing. Peter needed to search his heart to rediscover his deep and eternal love for his Lord. Yes, his flesh had been weak, but his spirit was given to Jesus forever. Peter needed to see what Jesus already knew.
• BE HONEST. Jesus didn’t gloss over Peter’s failure nor did his rub his face in it. He knew the fear that Peter had experienced in his time of testing, his time of failure. He wanted Peter to know that his disloyalty was not hidden, but it was not unforgiveable.
• RENEW THE TRUST. “Feed my lambs; feed my sheep; take care of my sheep.” Three times Peter had betrayed Jesus; three times Jesus asked Peter to search his heart; and then three times Jesus restored Peter’s commission to ministry.
• RESTORE THE RELATIONSHIP. “Follow me,” Jesus started back at the point where he had first met Peter, but his redemption changed Peter’s life forever.

People who have been disloyal, who have betrayed or wounded us or who have been unjust may not want or be willing to restore the relationship. I once heard Desmond Tutu say, “As Christians, we are obligated to forgive, but those who are forgiven cannot access that forgiveness unless they repent.”

Father, injuries seem to be part of living in an unredeemed world. Help us, as much as lies within us, to forgive and to redeem. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.

TURNING THE HEARTS

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children…  Malachi 4:6  (KJV)

 

 

I was with a small gathering with friends when someone shared a story about her young grandson.  He was playing ice hockey when another player ran into him and broke his leg.  The little guy was patched up and spent the remainder of the day in bed with a cast.

Some days later, his teacher asked the class to tell about the best day of their lives.  When it came time for this youngster to share, he said, “It was the day I broke my leg.”  The teacher interrupted, saying, “You didn’t understand.  I asked you to tell about the best day of your life.”  Again, the little fellow said, “It was the day I broke my leg.  That was the day my daddy spent the whole day with me.”

To this day, the father cannot tell the story without tearing up.  He says it was a wakeup call.  He had been leaving the house at 5:00 in the morning and coming home when it was dark.  His children hadn’t needed all the things he provided; they needed him.

How many of us can think of the times or events with our children that we could have handled differently?  Of the goals we’ve wanted to reach, thinking those would benefit our children most when all the time they’ve just wanted to be with us, to be loved by us.

Children tend to create the image of their heavenly Father based on what they know of their earthly father.  In all our learning, we move from the concrete to the abstract, and it’s so spiritually.  We learn unconditional love from our earthly father; we observe his character traits and assign those to our heavenly Father; we believe that our heavenly Father accepts us in the same measure as our earthly father.  All the traits, temperaments, dispositions, characteristics, and values that we see demonstrated by our earthly father we transfer to our heavenly Father.  True or not.

It’s no wonder that our children sometimes have trouble relating to God as one who has pursued them with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3), who will never leave nor forsake them (Deut. 31:6), who always keeps his promises (Josh. 21:45), and who has good plans for them (Jer. 29:11).  But there’s no need to despair.  As long as we’re alive, there’s still time to love and to heal.

So what if we weren’t the perfect parent in the past?  Who was?  As we grow, we learn, and we can repent of the mistakes of the past.  Can you imagine the wonder of a grown child whose parent asks his forgiveness?  God had given us the marvelous promise to restore the years the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25), and we can claim that as we reach out in faith to our children.  With our cooperation, he can heal the wounds we’ve inflicted and turn their hearts to him and to us.

 

Thank you, Father, for showing us your love through Jesus Christ.  Make us into the parents and grandparents you’d have us to be; help us to receive your unconditional love and to lavish it on our children and grandchildren. Forgive us our sins; give us courage to repent; and bring healing to our children and our families.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

NO FALLING

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.  Jude 24, 25 (KJV)

 

Do you ever worry about “blowing it” spiritually?  That maybe, just maybe, you might fail?  In our imperfect state, it’s not surprising that from time to time we might be tempted to look at our faults and worry that we won’t be capable of sustaining faith for the long run.  That’s TEMPTATION.  But we must remember that temptation speaks to possibility, not to reality.

Paul succinctly addresses that frightening possibility with these powerful words, “… sin  shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace”  (Romans 6:14 NIV).  Does that mean we’ll never again sin—that the potential to miss the mark has been eliminated because of our relationship with Jesus Christ?  That’s not what Paul is saying.  He’s telling us that since we’ve come to faith in Christ, we have a choice in our behavior:  now we can choose to always follow Jesus in obedience (not sinning) or we can fall back into self-indulgent behavior, which leads to sinning.  BUT there’s Jesus waiting to receive our confession as we repent; he forgives our sins and sets our feet on the right path again.

I heard a preacher once say that for Christians, the Ten Commandments now read, “You won’t want any other God.  You won’t want to have idols.  You won’t want to misuse God’s name.  You want to love your neighbor as yourself in word and action.”  The Law is now being fulfilled through God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

As new creations in Christ Jesus (being re-created and made more like him every day), we now understand that we don’t have to walk around on spiritual egg shells.   Instead, we walk in total freedom knowing that he is able and he is the one who keeps us from falling.  All we have to do is abide in him and allow him to abide in us.

He doesn’t just keep us from falling, but one day he will present us faultless with great joy.  He does it all as we cooperate with him, and he receives all the glory.

 

Father, thank you for good news that we can live every single day without fear of falling.  You have the power to keep us, and you constantly work in us to make us just like you.  THANK YOU.  AMEN.

FORGIVING 490 TIMES

 

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.  Matthew 18:21, 22  (KJV)

I don’t know about you, but injustice is the most difficult thing for me to forgive–when someone thoughtlessly (or with premeditation) harms someone else, and the injury isn’t deserved.  There seems to be a lot of injustice going around the world just now, so much so that we are all affected.

How is it possible to ever forgive the perpetrators of all the griefs that they inflict?  I absolutely cannot, but Jesus can.  I tend to look at the suffering through the lens of my own humanity.  I could never…  I would never… do so and so… forgetting that I’m already identified with all those who like sheep have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6), and that all my goodness is nothing better than dirty, filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

One of my favorite bishops says that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die.  Unforgiveness gnaws away at us, diminishes our quality of life, makes us bitter, and eventually destroys us.  The spiritual cost is huge.  Jesus said, Father, “Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.”  (Matthew 6:12 LB)  If God forgives us in proportion and in the same way as we forgive others, we could be in a lot of trouble.

So, how do we pull this off?  We do it by an act of the will.  Forgiveness is not an emotion.  It’s a behavior.  Jesus told us we would be obedient if we love him (John 14:15).  When Peter impulsively suggested that one should perhaps forgive an offense up to seven times, Jesus shocked him by saying seventy times seven.  That’s 490 times of forgiving just one offending person.

If we love Jesus, we will forgive – just as he has forgiven us.  We will decide to forgive based on Jesus’ words, not on the repentance of the other person or on his worthiness, and we find God’s grace in us empowers us to forgive.  I once heard Archbishop Tutu say that we are obligated to forgive, but the one being forgiven cannot receive forgiveness until he has repented.  It’s really not up to us to hang on to our grievances.  Jesus didn’t with us, thank God.

Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

GOD’S FAITHFULNESS

 

…if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.  II Timothy 2:13

I am reviewing the life of King David, the “sweet singer of Israel” (II Samuel 23:1), the king described as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22).  It almost seems unfair that David gets to be listed in the ranks of saints of the ages.  But that is God’s designation, not ours.

David’s relationship with Bathsheba could be viewed as a sin of the flesh.  After all, David should have been out doing his kingly duty and fighting with his men (II Samuel 11:1, 2) when he stayed home and was attracted to Bathsheba.  The relationship that followed David’s yielding to temptation is not unusual.  But the cover up is reprehensible.  When Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, refuses to visit his wife two times during his return to Jerusalem, David meticulously plans his murder and sends the order for his execution in Uriah’s own hands.  It’s obvious that Uriah is highly trusted; he could have read David’s order and avoided death.

There are other records of David’s careless approach to his responsibilities before God:  his pride in numbering the soldiers of Israel (I Chronicles 21:2), his overlooking Joab’s murder of Abner (II Samuel 3:30), and his lack of discipline of his children (II Samuel 13:21, 28, 29, 18:5).  And yet, God saw David as a man after his own heart.

God knew David, the man who spent time meditating on him, praising him, and instructing the priests and the people in worship.  God saw David’s heart, and God saw David’s instant response when confronted by Nathan, the prophet:  “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.”  (Psalm 51:4)  David understood that sin breaks the heart of God, even more so than the ones feeling its pain.

In Psalm 16:2, David confesses, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”  David throws himself onto God’s mercy in full recognition of his need for cleansing and God’s grace (Psalm 51:1, 2).   Like Paul, David recognizes that “by the grace of God” he is who he is (I Corinthians 15:10).

And while we sometimes look at ourselves (or others) seeing only the flaws, even the sins, God looks at our hearts (I Samuel 16:7) and responds to genuine repentance, forgiving at least seventy times seven (Matthew 18:2).  He knows that one who has been forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:7).  But even more than this, God is not dependent on our faithfulness to remain faithful.  Faithfulness is an intrinsic part of God’s nature, and he remains faithful to his character forever.

Let us be encouraged in our journey to faithfully follow our Lord without fear, guided by love (which calls us to obedience), and without condemnation (walking in the Spirit).  He will never leave us or forsake us.  He is always faithful, and we can be.

 

Father, we are often overwhelmed by your love and your faithfulness that came at such cost to you.  Continue your good work that we may in turn be faithful to you.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.