Authenticity – God’s Work
“Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night,
before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice”
Mark 14:30
Authenticity – God’s Work
Peter’s love and commitment were based on emotion and utter ignorance of his need for brokenness and grace. In his mind his resolve to follow Jesus to whatever end was unquestionable. How utterly confused he must have been by the certainty of Jesus’ statement regarding Peter’s failure to come in the hours ahead.
To be told by his beloved Master of his failure, even down to the time a certain rooster would crow at a particular place, must have been utterly unnerving. How could He know of this sequence of events? How could He be so precise in His Word?
I can only imagine that Peter must have gone to sleep that night mulling over this warning. How he must have resolved in his heart not to fail his Lord! Tears and self-doubt would have dominated his thoughts as he contemplated what the next day might hold. His Master’s words had been uttered with no anger or resentment in His voice, but just a knowing of who Peter was. Despite all his soul-searching the night before, the next day, in the heat of the moment, he denied his Lord and wept bitterly.
“And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept”
Mark 14:72
God, in dealing with His own, prepares everything for the Master’s use; the mundane as well as the great. All tools in His hands are to bring His Own to the end of themselves and the beginning of God as the master builder must build the foundation upon the rock beneath, so God brings us to the Rock of Christ. Only here can the real building start and our true life in God proceed.
Authenticity is the only rock upon which He will build. Pretense and hypocrisy, though they may cause others to think well of us for a time, will leave the soul in poverty and lead to spiritual death. Christ knows all, sees all, and will judge all. The light we refuse on this side of heaven will surely be faced in the Courts of His Justice on that Day. It is here and now that we must free ourselves from the need to please men and bring ourselves to the piercing light of Christ. Then we may stand in that Day as those who have passed from judgment unto the right-being (righteousness) that can be found in Christ alone. He alone can make us right; He gave His Life to make it so.
“Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment:
because as he is, so are we in this world”
1 John 4:17
As our love is made perfect in Him, we will have the grace and boldness to be “as He is” in this world and the Day of Judgment.
Related Post: For He Worketh
Brian Troxel
