Peter was in the new! He was tapping in to and communing with Father. This lasted until Jesus told the disciples the time had come for Him to complete His mission and go to Jerusalem and die. Now Peter\’s emotions refused to embrace the will and revelation of Father. He actually pulled Jesus aside, rebuked Him, and forbade Him to continue in such nonsense. Jesus was ready to end a season and allow all of mankind to begin a new season, but the emotions of Peter refused to align with the will of heaven. Jesus equated Peter\’s mind, will, and emotions to that of Satan. He said, \”Get behind Me, Satan!\” (Matt. 16:23).
What does this say to us when the time has come for us to move into the next season? Our emotions can resist the change. Actually, we can open the door to align our heart, mind, and emotions with the enemy\’s plan. Peter had set his mind on his own interests and not on God\’s overall plan of why He had given His Son to the world.
When we agree with the enemy, the Lord gives the enemy the right to sift, torment, and really deal with all of our being. It is in that circumstance we lose time. Why?
The Lord is praying that we will cut every tie with Satan\’s thinking, renew our mind, and follow Him. Jesus continued to address His disciples by saying:
If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person give in exchange for his life?
-MATTHEW 16:24-26.
Later Jesus comforted Peter by telling him, \”`Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.\’ But [Peter] said to Him, `Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.\’ Then He said, `I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me\”\’ (Luke 22:31-34).
When we are being sifted, the process of winnowing is going on. However, this process is not out in the wheat field-it is within us. The weeds and tares in us are being pulled out.
Sifting is a time-a time of pain, confusion, and agony. There has been something growing in us for years. The Lord has been nurturing our best and preparing for a full manifestation of our destiny. However, alongside our best is a stronghold- something that has been impregnated by the enemy. It also wants to come to full maturity to contend and stop the world from ever seeing the glory of the One who is molding us. Unless the sifting occurs to remove that toehold of the enemy from our emotions and thinking process, our will is in danger of ensnarement.
The sifting process is like going through an old-fashioned wringer washing machine. We know that on the other side of the squeezing, we will be cleaner and brighter than before, but during the cycle there is great pressing, separation, and even torment of mind until we make our way to the other side. Then comes the step linked with being hung out to dry. However, there is a place and time when you realign your faculties and become one mind with the One who has been pursuing you.
HE PURSUES!
The Lord never forgets your ultimate destiny. From the moment when the Lord first met Peter, He prophesied Peter\’s future. John 1:40-42 (NASD) says, \”One of the two who heard John speak and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter\’s brother. He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, `We have found the Messiah\’ (which translated means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, `You are Simon the son of Jona; you shall be called Cephas\’ (which is translated Peter).\”
From the beginning, He knows our end. He works from outside of A______________B Therefore, He pursues what we will become, not who we are in the present. One is called because he or she is chosen. The call implies choice! Peter was chosen perhaps not for any reason other than the Lord was pleased to choose him. He saw his potential. Each of us has the potential to follow Him and become new. Simon, the brash, hotheaded, impulsive, self-assertive fisherman would one day be a rock for others to build upon. The Lord, ever our pursuer, sees our ultimate best and calls to us to stop and surrender our wills and ways to Him. We lose a lot of time by running away from our own destiny.
In His pursuit, He never forgets us but doggedly approaches us again and again to give each of us another opportunity to move into His best for our lives. He pursues us past our wrong decisions, erratic emotions, and unrestrained words to find us where we may be hidden so that He can pour His transforming grace upon lives, change our names, and make us like Him. As He pursues and we yield, our hearts become less confident, less arrogant, less sure of our future, more open, and more reliant on the One who has called us.
Finally, after denial, after denial, and after denial again, Peter was confronted over his destiny one last time. Well, I might more accurately say three times. He was fishing again. Life is funny-we return to what is familiar once crisis really sets in around us. After the denial, after the death, after the Resurrection, and after the next fishing expedition, Jesus showed up again to confront this disciple who had returned to his once-postponed profession. What will you do with the missionary call on your life? What will you do with as much the amount you are commanded to give to the Lord in this work?
I am so glad that Jesus shows up again and again until He has given us every opportunity to receive the best He has for us. But Peter had yet to embrace the best, the call that Jesus had been leading him to embrace for the last three years. Jesus asked Peter three different times to express his love to Him. The third time, Peter submitted and said, \”Lord, only You really know.\” He had been sifted in the crisis and knew there was only One who could truly lead and whom he would follow.
Even after this emotional, gut-wrenching confrontation of the risen Lord, who was still willing to pursue Peter, he wondered about how others would be pursued. Peter asked about John\’s new beginning. The Lord said, \”What is that to you? You follow Me\” (John 21:22).
PETER’S key-HE REMAINED IN GOD’S TIMING
The Master\’s purpose for Peter was to leave his boat and come after Him so that He could make him a fisher of men. The Lord met Peter in his normal, usual occupation, just like David who was summoned from the sheepfold. Peter\’s call was changed from fishing for fish to fishing for men. Peter made it past his failures, his sins, and his alignment with the enemy\’s ultimate plan to stop the Lord from Father\’s call to redemption. His consuming passion had to be bridled and transformed under the power of the living Christ. He had to partner his passion with Christ\’s passion.
The key to Peter\’s life was that once he started following, he kept following. The Lord\’s prophecies over him of becoming a rock and having the ability to overcome hell seemed to be so deep within his spirit that even in the midst of denial, he could not do anything other than pick himself up and keep following.
Peter was in God\’s perfect timing. All of these experiences were building and transforming his spirit and character to be used for the future. His failure to watch with the Lord for an hour, his misunderstanding of God\’s plans, his hardheaded way of working for his daily bread, his denials, and even at one time his identity being expressed as Satan himself could not keep him from becoming all that the Lord had first spoken that he would be.
If we stay in God\’s time, He will constantly renew His covenant and purpose with us. Most importantly, He will develop His life work through us. Peter never lost his bold personality, but he did lose his self-will as he humbled himself to the will of God. Remaining in God\’s timing will take us through hard trials and into the ultimate plan that Father has ordained for us. Peter, with all of his issues, surrendered to the call the Lord had for him. This surrender affected the history of the church as much or more than anyone who has ever lived. If the Lord can be this patient with Peter, to mold, transform, intercede for, and watch after, it is no problem for Him to do the same for you! Yield now, and stay in time!