2 revelations
As I am
winding down my world race experience, I’m finding that God is increasingly
laying some good truths in my life, that are very good revelations that have
been good for me. Things that will continue to mold and shape me into the kind
of man He’s created me to be. A man striving after character, honesty, and
integrity.
I was in
the book of Mark and John reading this too often overlooked passage of
scripture about Peter and Jesus. Jesus is just days away from going to the
cross, and He tells Peter that he will deny him 3 times before the rooster
crows, Peter insistently tells Jesus he will never deny him, and in fact he
would lay down his life for Jesus. I started thinking for a bit on this;
because we all know Peter did in fact go onto deny Jesus 3 times. Yet when
Jesus appears back to Peter on the shore after his resurrection, he asks Peter
3 times “Do you love me?” Peter says, “of course Lord you know that I love
you”. The problem with that is “you know that I love you is not a statement,
it’s an act, a response an attitude. Whenever we say to anyone ” I am this you
know that I am” we’re asking them to accept something that they’re saying that
has no substance, other than the words, they speak it with.
first realization I came to is, what you act out from your heart is the reality
of what you say. How many times have we been upset because we would say, “I am
not believed” when actually what we want is people to believe is a statement
but not a state of heart.
This made me realize something else…
You don’t measure a man or woman’s character by their
actions, but by their reactions. Too often we know what’s expected of us so we
play the game, look the part when it comes to actions. Peter knew he was a
disciple of Jesus, and in his mind had a false perception of who he really is,
in this case he bypasses the notion he would ever deny Jesus, his friend,
mentor, and teacher.
When
you’re caught off guard, when something happens that disrupts your world,
something that interferes with your relationship if something doesn’t connect
in your expectations, I want to know what comes out of you then, do you
withdrawal, do you condemn, do you criticize, do you withhold, do you accuse,
do you gossip, do you point the finger in judgment?
We must
not just look at how we act; I know how to act just as well as you do for what
is required. When the pressure is on, what is the reaction that comes up, what
comes up out of my spirit is a true indicator of my character.
We seem
to live our lives between 2 extremes. On one hand there is Metanoia: (Greek
word) radical transformation. In the bible you more often read it as
repentance. Metanoia gives hope of possibility and potential.
On the
other hand is Paranoia: a state of elaborate illusions, and self-deception,
which are born out of fear, suspicion, and flight from reality.
Whenever
fear grips our lives suspicion will go hand in hand with it. We suspect peoples
motives. What we are doing is creating a false reality of the situation, about
our life, about our spirituality, it becomes a false illusion when actually if
we root it down and say, “Am I living in metanoia or paranoia? Most of us are
living in paranoia.
We
rationalize how we feel when actually what’s not happening is radical
transformation (Metanoia). We are justifying where we are, not moving to where
we need to be. We have the power to choose which one dominates our attitude,
approach to life, God, and spirituality.
Peter
chose to move from his false reality of who he thought he was, to a state of
heart when he had an encounter with the resurrected Christ. The way we allow this to happen is by
living in the tension of the truth about our own condition and the wonder of
total acceptance. Meaning we are as bad as we think we are sometimes, but God
accepts us and loves us unconditionally right where we’re at and there’s
nothing we can or will do to earn that, it’s a gift.
