2008 February « upon my knees

Peter and Me

Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said. But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!“

After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.”

Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!“

Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Matthew 26:69-75

I went to my church’s morning service this morning. I went there with an expectation that I will once again be touched by God’s words. I want to experience encounter with God again. Of course, what I expect was to suddenly feel an inexplicable joy from nowhere, to feel close to God out of the sudden. What I learnt soon after that was that God is not someone I order around to get what I want. And soon, I began to see His way.

Ev. Billy Kristanto preached about Matthew 26:69-75 this morning, especially with the nearing of Good Friday. His preaching was as usual, very reflective in nature. So reflective that I felt so much similarities with Peter to the extent that I couldn’t even be calm while listening to him delivering God’s words. Thus the title : Peter and Me.

The first point that I learnt today is that Jesus, as Peter’s teacher, is not the kind of person who protects the one he loves to the extent that Peter must not be hurt on any occasion. Contrary to that, Jesus wanted Peter to grow. He knew that Peter will deny Him and He did nothing to prevent that from happening, even though He has the power to. That is how much Jesus loves Peter. He’d rather have his reputation marred by the act of disloyalty of His disciples than not to see Peter grow. See, from Matthew 26:31-35, we observe how Peter is so self-confident about his faith . Ironic isn’t it? How self-confident can go side by side with faith when self-confident is about ourselves but faith is about letting go of ourselves. Exactly! Jesus wanted to see Peter’s self-confident crushed to the core and wanted Peter to fill the crushed confidence with God’s grace.

I see myself so much similar to Peter. I felt as if I have done so much sin that it is so impossible for me to return to Him. and lately, I have been covering my ears to God’s words and instead turns to the evil one. Unlike Peter though, my confidence is not how I can have strong faith in God but how weak my faith is that I’d rather give up than to keep lying to myself and God. I have been shunning away from God and what He wants to myself and what I want. What God wants is too difficult to achieve. What I want is easier to get and I can enjoy them instantly. I did ask God why He let me go through this period. Many, many, many times. I told Him I surrender everything to Him. He did not come and save me immediately, not in any miraculous way, not express.

That is God’s nature. He wants us grow in faith. As Rev. Dr. Stephen Tong always preaches in his sermons that trials and temptations are necessary in our lives. He wants us to see how wicked, how sinful, how filthy we are that nothing we do can ever redeem ourselves. He wants to crush all our self-righteousness. All we need to do is to have faith in Him, not faith in ourselves, nor faith in our faith. He wants us to lean 100% on Him.

The second point I learn today is what it means to have faith in Him. What it means to lean 100% on Him. It’s not about the methods, it’s not about steps. It’s about telling Him “God, I let you take this burden from me, I let you take control from here. Help me, O God” and sincerely means what I say. My boyfriend told me about his conversation with Rev. Billy a few days ago. He talked to him about controlling thoughts in our head. The point is not US controlling our head. We may have many thoughts, some according to His words, some against. We, fragile human beings, may not be able to have control over all those. What Rev. Billy suggested was for us to have faith in holding on to the biblical thoughts, no matter how uncomfortable we will feel.

I have been stuck in this period/situation for so long now. I moved forward one step, then back two steps, moved one step forward again and back five steps, etc, etc to a point that it drove me sick to even do anything at all. I thought “Whatever it is that I do, I will still fail. Why should I bother?“. This is the reason why I am stuck for so long. Why I’d rather listen to the evil one than to God. Because carrying out what God wants is too darn difficult. I want shortcuts, expressway. However, God teaches me that He doesn’t provide fast food. He provides bread of life. He wants me to learn what it means to have faith in Him. To do what He wants and not worry about falling back again because He Himself will pick me up with His grace which is much more overwhelming than our sins. To believe that though we can’t control ourselves, He can.

The last thing I learnt today is about Christian living. Calvin once said that as a Christian, we should think of ourselves lower with each day. Less confidence in ourselves, and fill ourselves more with God’s grace.

In short, I learn about why He let this happens, and how I should response.

Teach me to understand and experience Your Grace. The Grace that made Paul saw everything else apart from God as rubbish. The Grace from Christ death on the calvary.

Thank you, Lord. Thanks for Your loving kindness. Your faithfulness.

Psalm 23

Psalm 23

Music by Rev. Billy Kristanto

The Lord is my shepherd

I shall not want

He makes me to lie down in green pastures

He lays me beside the still waters

He restores my soul

He leads me for His name’s sake