Matt. 26
Fear is a powerful thing. It entices us to do things we don’t want to do. Peter’s desire was to stick with Jesus, even if it meant death. Yet when confronted in the courtyard of the high priest’s palace, he denied even knowing Jesus. That’s what fear does for you.
I notice that Peter was with Jesus when he boldly declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” (Matt. 26:35). However, he was not with Jesus when he swore under curse, “I don’t know the man!” (Matt. 26:74). This stresses to me the importance of staying in God’s presence, because it is God who gives us power over fear. As God tells us multiple times in multiple ways in His word, “do not fear, for I am with you” (Is. 41:10a).
Of course, just because God gives us power over fear, that doesn’t mean we always accept it. Peter was with Jesus at His arrest, but because of fear, “all the disciples deserted Him and fled”. (Matt. 26:56b). So fear can draw us away from God if we let it. Once we turn from God, fear strengthens its grip on us and the destructive cycle begins.
We also know from God’s word that we cannot serve two masters. Fear is a brutal master. The simple truth we must constantly remind ourselves of is that God is greater than even our greatest fear. As Josh Wilson’s song states, “The things that I’m afraid of are afraid of you.” We also know, from Psalm 37, that when we put our hope, trust, confidence, and delight in God, He will give us the desires of our heart. So when our desire, like Peter’s, is to stick with Jesus even to death, we can do it.
Deut. 33-34
As I have been posting these musings of mine to this website, I have learned some things about what the “content experts” want to see in what they consider to be good writing. One of these things is a limited amount of “passive voice”. That basically means that they want to see the subjects of the writing doing the action, rather than the action being done to them. In learning this, I have noticed that the Bible has an awful lot of passive voice. Whatever the “content experts” may think of this, I find it to be most appropriate!
We, God’s people, are the subjects of God’s story. But we are God’s subjects. We are who and what we are because of who God is and what He has done. It is God who created us and performs His work in us to complete what He started in and for us. The action is His. We are just the passive recipients. As it says in Deuteronomy 33:29, “Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD?” Yes indeed – I am a passive, powerless person defined by the active salvation of an all-powerful God. Amen!