Jesus Revealed Pt. 13 - No Greater LoveSample

Peter's Betrayal Foretold  

Thoughts on the Passage

Jesus has now mentioned this for the third time that He is going away and people cannot follow Him. He mentioned it in chapter eight, earlier in this chapter (vs 33) and now here. It will not be the last time either because He talked about it again in chapter 14. He deals with it in more detail then, so we will leave it for next week.

Peter has a very high opinion of his spiritual strength, his love and commitment to Jesus, and his inner strength to be willing to die for Jesus. As we see, Peter will be asked to die for Jesus – and in fact, Church tradition has it that all of the apostles ended up dying for their faith with the exception of the apostle John. It is not that they did not understand the cost of following Jesus and were not prepared to follow Jesus even to death. It is clear that they recognized that and their faith and trust in Jesus led them there – and they willingly chose to follow it. 

This is something different. This is a journey that Jesus will take that they cannot follow. The journey to the cross – and future glory – is something that Jesus will take alone. They will join into it later. Right now, they cannot join. In many senses we see again how limited our strength really is. Peter had great love for Jesus – but he would betray his Master. Peter had great strength, but it was nothing considering what he would face. When we try to do things without the strength of God helping us – get ready for a fall, because it is coming! God would not give the disciples the strength for this because He would not have them do something only Jesus could do.
In many senses this is a powerful eye-opener for all of us. Do not try and do things in our own strength.

Application

Take time today to ask God for the strength to do the tasks for the day. It is not that we cannot do things, but the greater the task, the greater the need for the strength of God. The more mature we are, the more we realize that every task needs God’s help – not just the big ones!

We are going to see two people betray Jesus – Judas and Peter. Watch how both of them have to examine themselves when they come face to face with their failure – and limitations.

Time to Pray

Father, we see ourselves in Peter so easily. He is bold, he is strong, he loves You passionately and he is not afraid. Still he failed because he did it in his own strength. Today, I want You to examine my heart and see if there is anything that I seek to do – but You do not want me to do it and do not intend to provide the grace to do it. Help me drop it! It is not worth failure. I only want to do what You provide the strength to do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.