No Denying Him

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

NO DENYING HIM

Mark 14:66-72

66 While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. 67 When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. "You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus," she said. 68 But he denied it. "I don't know or understand what you're talking about," he said, and went out into the entryway.   69 When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, "This fellow is one of them." 70 Again he denied it. After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, "Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean." 71 He began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, "I don't know this man you're talking about." 72 Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times." And he broke down and wept.

NIV

Jesus told Peter this would happen and Peter insisted he would never do such a thing, that he was willing to die with Jesus. However, here he is doing exactly what Jesus said he would do. Three times he had the opportunity to admit he was one of Jesus’s disciples, and it wasn’t to anyone who would have arrested him or beat him. The first was a servant girl, although she was a servant girl of the high priest, and possible she would have gone back and told the master, the high priest, about Peter, had he said that he was not with that Nazarene Jesus. It was this same girl who was talking with the others and telling them Peter was with Jesus and he denied her statements again. The third time he was even more emphatic about not even knowing what they were talking about as if he had never even heard about this Jesus. It seems almost impossible to imagine this Peter denying Jesus three times, and yet he did. Peter was the one who walked on water. Peter was the one who said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter was the one who saw Jesus transfigured. Peter saw Jesus raise several people from the dead. How could he do such a thing as to deny he even knew Jesus? Certainly, we would not deny Jesus. But then we live in a culture that does not care that much whether we know Jesus or not. We can freely admit that we are Christians, but then in doing that it does not mean that we are or have been with Jesus, that we are one of his disciples. Many people claim Christianity as their religion, but in our culture, that does not necessarily mean they are followers of Jesus. It is easy to say that we believe in God, many people believe there is a God, or at least hope there is a God so they can believe they will go to heaven when they die. But do we talk about being a follower of Jesus? To we talk about being a disciple of Jesus? Do we talk about the fact that the only where to eternal life is believing in and accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior? Do we press that point? Do we allow people to skip that truth and simply affirm them as being saved because they say they believe in God? If so, is that a form of denying Jesus? We think we have to just put the truth, the whole truth out there, including the name of Jesus, not just God in our conversations. We need to include those words about being born again, about accepting Jesus as our Savior, and about it is only through Jesus that our sins are forgiven. Every time a conversation about God ensues, we need to use the name of Jesus, no denying him.