Thrice Denied John 13:36-38 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Here Peter wanted to follow Jesus right now, but Jesus told him that he would have to wait and that he could follow Jesus later. We are just like Peter because we have to learn to wait when we ask for something from God and give Him time to work it out on His schedule. We have to realize that during that time of waiting we can get ourselves in trouble.

The trouble is that we are very zealous for the Lord until something comes up that we didn’t expect. Then suddenly we find ourselves running away from the Lord as fast as we can.

Peter was always zealous for the Lord, but he was dumbfounded when Jesus would not allow him to defend Him in thegardenofGethsemane(Luke 22:31-37, John 18:10). Peter could not see the greater purpose that Jesus was fulfilling in sacrificing His life and so Peter became upset with Jesus and ended up denying Jesus three times just as Jesus had foretold.

Previously Peter never would have denied the Lord, but he discounted the word of God and he discounted the devil. Not recognizing that he had this adversary, the devil, and not accepting the word of God made him stumble in his walk with the Lord.

Nevertheless, Peter got back up and returned to his zeal and got right with the Lord. We need to be like Peter and get a grip on our zeal whenever we stumble in our walk with the Lord.