Unimaginable Grace and Forgiveness

29 Peter declared, "Even if all fall away, I will not." 30 "Truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times." 31 But Peter insisted emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the others said the same.

Mark 14:29-31



Jesus, at a time when he would need the support of His closest followers the most, knew that they would disown Him and in fact is even able to describe to Peter the circumstances of His personal rejection of Jesus that was about to happen in the coming days. The rest of the story as we will read later is that Peter did just as Jesus had described. The story doesn’t end there though, the most amazing part and unimaginable thing that followed in the weeks and months and years to come is a true reflection of the heart of the God we serve. Jesus, forgave Peter for disowning Him and above that even, He used Peter to be one of the pillars of the church that you and I enjoy and worship in today. See, God understands the brokenness and sin of this world in which we live. He understands that there will be times of defeat, times that we struggle and fail despite our best efforts. What Jesus is communicating to us through this passage this morning is that He knows already how we will respond and choices that we will make today and He knows that not all of those choices will be in the best interest of our relationship with Him and yet He loves us anyway. See, the moral of the story is that it is not about us. No, it is not about our own efforts to achieve through our own strength some sort of “Super Christian” status or to be a person who lives a perfect life. It is about Jesus and the price that He paid for each and every one of us in order that we could be free to live a life with Him where we are forgiven completely and eternally for sins of the past as well as the future. It is about this amazing and incomprehensible grace and forgiveness that reaches down to the innermost parts of our soul and somehow starts the healing process in order that slowly but surely our brokenness and sin and shame can be healed by God’s Spirit who lives inside as we one day at a time learn what it means to know and love Jesus more - rest in this amazing love and forgiveness today as you start anew your journey with God.