Peter

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.  And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.                                           Matthew 16:17

 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”                    Matthew 16:23

In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, in the space of just a few verses, Jesus tells Peter that he will become the rock upon which his church will be built, followed by an admonition that Peter had more human concerns than godly thinking.

Pretty wild sequence, right? Peter goes from favored child to clueless follower in a short space of time. Now, I am not a Bible scholar, but I think those actions came pretty close together in time. Peter was human, and he could have great insights, as well as thoughtless moments in a very short sequence!

Yeah, he was just like us. We make these kinds of mistakes all the time, yet Jesus never throws us away. Jesus did not strip Peter of his place as a leader just because of a thoughtless sequence of events. Peter was impulsive and passionate. That passion was the very reason Jesus chose him.

Yet, our greatest strengths become our greatest weaknesses if we do not manage them well. Peter was just like us. We have strengths that we must manage in order to become the most effective selves that we were designed to be.

Prayer: Lord, help us to manage our strengths well, Amen