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Gospel of Mark # 54 ~(14:27-31, 66-77)

Started by Al Moak, September 20, 2004, 09:35:51 AM

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Al Moak

Mark 14:27-31, 66-72
Unconditional Love


Jesus knows you. He knows everything about you, even everything you will do, from this moment on into eternity. He knew ahead of time that you would forget Him through much of each day, that you would "talk a good spiritual fight," but not back up your words with action, that you would occasionally follow your own willful desires instead of obeying His Word, and that you would love and worship Him with something less than all your heart. Yet, with all His foreknowledge, our Lord didn't shrink from choosing you, from drawing you to Himself, and from making you His special son or daughter, His dear child, and His trusted servant!

But, you see, He saw the end from the beginning.  He already knew from all eternity what He would ultimately make of you, and how you would get there from here! He already knew, in other words, what He'd have to put up with along the way! So He's going to keep you anyway, no matter how badly you go astray now. He will succeed with you. He will not fail in the slightest degree. He'll keep right on working in your heart and life until He has exactly what He wants.

And it's happening right now, even during the times you think you're the furthest from Him. The only thing He wants from you is a beginning and continuing commitment. He wants your heart of hearts, the part He changed and made new at the beginning of your spiritual life in Him, the deepest part of your being, your inner being that makes you return again and again after each fall - He wants your "bottom-line" will. He'll take care of the rest, day by day and moment by moment.

But there has to be that beginning commitment. Has it happened?  Have you given over your will to Him? Have you ever, right from your heart, said, "Lord, be my LORD! I really want You to run my life, however it may sometimes appear." He brought you to that point – and He'll see that you reach the finish line. 

Not that you'll be passive - far from it! But that's just the point - He'll keep you from being passive. He'll move you to pray, to confess your need of Him, to call on Him for help, to "hang in there" when the going seems tough.  Peter's story illustrates what I've been saying.

Jesus knew that His disciples would all be ashamed of Him in the evening, even though they all denied it that morning. They all had an intense emotional commitment to their Master. They had been with Him for some years and months at this point, and their esteem for Him was very, very high. They believed that He was truly sent from the Father, from the very Throne of God. They had seen all His miracles, all His loving, caring, gentle ministry, all the hardships He had gladly undergone to serve His Father. They knew Him, and they considered themselves extremely loyal to Him. They expressed willingness to die with Him. Yet Jesus foresaw that they would deny even knowing Him that very evening!

Were they weak-willed individuals? Were they fools? Were they, after all, no better than their compatriot Judas Who betrayed Jesus? Did their commitment and their months of service count for nothing after all? No, they believed all right, but they hadn't yet learned to stand under fire. As long as they were with Him, as long as He was right there to correct their wrong impressions and hold them in His Father's love, why, of course, they would stand. But take their Master away, threaten them with jail, shame, and even death because they belong to Him, and without even time to reflect upon what they were doing they would deny Him.

But Jesus wanted them to remember afterward that He had told them they would fail. He wanted them to know that were still His chosen apostles, that though they stumbled, yet they would definitely rise again. He told them, "I shall go before you into Galilee." They would meet Him there, and they would still be His disciples. They would continue their service in the kingdom. Only they would have learned to depend upon Him instead of upon themselves. It's a lesson we also need to learn, is it not?

We might read about these things and say, "Isn't this passage really about Peter's denial in particular?" I don't believe it is. I believe Peter is merely the most vivid example of the failure of the entire group of disciples - and sometimes of ourselves as well.

He knew all our failures ahead of time, but, just as with the disciples, He wants us to go on, to expect to meet Him a little further along in Galilee. He'll be there. He'll be waiting for us. He'll teach us about what went wrong and what we can do about it next time. And most of all, He'll teach us about His unconditional love that will not let us go.

Of course there will be times when you'll be tempted to say, "I've gone too far now! He didn't expect this failure! There's no way He'll take me back now!" But He says to you, "Remember My servant Peter!"

As leading spokesman for all of them, Peter had said, "Though all deny You, yet not I! Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" Considering these words, what Peter did that night was pretty serious. He denied knowing Jesus, He verbally gave up His relationship with Him, and he gave up everything he'd learned over the previous three years.

Would you ever do anything like that? Perhaps you already have. Perhaps there came a time when it was very important to you to avoid losing the esteem of those around you. So you tried to speak and act as they did. You agreed with them - and in so doing, even though it may not have been in so many words, you denied your Lord and denied being one of those fanatical Christians who have living relationships with Jesus Christ. And then you were very, very ashamed.

At that point you began to wonder about your past relationship with Jesus Christ. You began to wonder if it had ever been real. In your doubts, you began to think of yourself as a hypocrite.

But that's precisely the conclusion your Lord doesn't want you to reach. It's good for us to do as Paul said, to "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith." But the conclusions to which we come shouldn't be based upon momentary failures - or even upon repeated failures.

Peter wept bitterly after his failure. Do you? If so, if there's true, heatfelt sorrow for your action, then go on to Galilee, meet Christ your Lord there, receive His correcting love, and go on serving Him.

Giving up will serve no purpose except the purpose of the Devil. It's precisely what he hopes for. It takes you out of service and discourages others as well.

So keep coming back, because, ultimately, Jesus is your Lord. His love is unconditional. He'll receive you back from a thousand falls. Tell Him you failed. Weep bitterly as Peter did. Then look at the Cross and see there how much He underwent for sinners, how much He'll therefore be willing to forgive. Confess your failure to Him. He'll forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness - again. There's no limit.

That doesn't mean you can be careless. In fact if He ever really had your heart in the first place, you won't be. Peter's weeping is your example, and you'll weep too if your faith was ever genuine.

If your heart remains hardened after you fall, then you're in real danger, and you undoubtedly don't care what I say now. Jesus isn't speaking to your heart in that case. You need to repent for the first time, to bow your heart before Christ in surrender, to look up to Him as loving Savior and Lord.

Have you ever done that? If so, He'll always be there for you, always receive you back into His arms again and restore you to the company of His disciples.

Do you want that kind of unconditional love? Always look to the only Source there is of that kind of love! He won't turn you away!


Chris & Margit Saunders

Wonderful.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/l/oltwnlmg.htm

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.