<\/p>\n
Peter had made some hurtful mistakes. And our text for today shows how Jesus gently addressed them.<\/p>\n
Before Jesus was arrested and crucified, Peter had promised never to disown or abandon Jesus. He had even said, \u201cI will lay down my life for you\u201d (John 13:37; see Mark 14:31). But then, soon after Jesus was arrested, Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus (Mark 14:66-72; John 18:15- 27). He was afraid to be connected with Jesus.<\/p>\n
After his death and resurrection, Jesus met with his disciples, including Peter, several times\u2014and in our text for today he is with the disciples at the Sea of Galilee. Three times Jesus approaches Peter, the three-time denier, with this question: \u201cDo you love me?\u201d And each time Peter says yes. Then Jesus tells him, each time, to care for his sheep.<\/p>\n
Just like that, Peter\u2019s denials are graciously forgiven, and Peter is powerfully recommissioned. Jesus even repeats to Peter what he had said to his disciples when he had first called them three years earlier: \u201cFollow me!\u201d (see Mark 1:17). It\u2019s as if Peter\u2019s denials had never happened.<\/p>\n
Peter\u2019s restoration shows us that if anyone is in Christ, there is not only a new creation but also a new commission: to follow Jesus into whatever work he calls us to in our context, in our lives.<\/p>\n
The old has gone. The new has come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter had made some hurtful mistakes. And our text for today shows how Jesus gently addressed them. Before Jesus was arrested and crucified, Peter had promised never to disown or abandon Jesus. He had even said, \u201cI will lay down my life for you\u201d (John 13:37; see Mark 14:31). But then, soon after Jesus was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1814,86,269,3308,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-26324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotionals","8":"tag-commission","9":"tag-daily","10":"tag-devotional","11":"tag-peters","12":"tag-today"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}