“You will keep him in perfect
peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”—Isaiah 26:3
In the midst of difficult times and
adversity, it is easy for our trust to flounder and for our eyes to drift from Jesus to the problem. Once our focus
shifts away from God, the problem becomes magnified. Negative thinking can overwhelm faith and
extinguish courage. It is during this
time that we may be tempted to quit. This
is what happened to Peter the night that Jesus was arrested.
Before Jesus was betrayed and
arrested, He told His disciples that they would come upon difficult times, and
that they would all “stumble.” He
assured them that He would meet them again in Galilee; however, at the time the
disciples did not grasp that He was talking about His death and
resurrection. In fact, Peter boldly
declared that he would not “stumble;” but Jesus told him that he would deny Him
that night three times before the rooster crowed. Not long after Jesus told His disciples this
would happen, Judas betrayed Him and Jesus was arrested. During all of the dangerous turmoil
surrounding Jesus’ arrest and being brought before the high priest, Peter
mingled with the crowd pretending to be one of them. However, a servant girl thought that she
recognized Peter as one of Jesus’ followers and accused him. Peter denied the accusation by saying, “I do not know what you are saying.” A
short time later another girl accused him and this time he said with an oath, “I do not know the Man!” Then
the third time he was accused by several other people of being with Jesus and
he responded with cursing and swearing and denials of knowing Jesus. “Immediately
a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him,
‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ So he went out and
wept bitterly” (Matthew 26).
Peter’s experience paints a clear
picture for us today. Although Jesus had
forewarned the disciples what was about to happen, Peter still tried to work
things out in his own strength which was a dismal failure. Too often, we tend to see the adversity or
difficulty in terms of our own strength and resources rather than God’s. However, when our focus shifts to a godly
perspective the doom and gloom of failure, turns to gladness and we experience
joy. The Lord has told us that we would
experience adversity and difficulties in life, but that we are to have peace
and to be happy because He has already won the victory for us (John
16:33). We can be like the Apostle Paul,
by keeping our focus on the Lord, and saying with him, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians
4:13).
Prayer—Father
I purpose in my heart to keep my eyes and heart focused upon You at all
times. With Your help, I will never
falter nor fail, in Jesus Name. Amen.
