Richard Roberts
I believe in a second chance. I don’t know anyone who has not made mistakes or slipped and fallen in life. I don’t know anyone who has not had to say, “God, I really blew it that time.” Yet there are so many people who think, God, I messed it up, and there is no chance for me.
Surely that is what Peter must have thought after he denied the Lord Jesus and cursed three times. People talk about Judas’ selling Jesus out, but look what Peter did. He cursed and denied that he even knew Jesus. Yet, Peter was the one who, when he came to town, they put the sick on beds in the street so that his shadow might pass over them and they might be healed. He is the one who preached a three-minute sermon on the Day of Pentecost and three thousand souls were saved.
Peter denied and deserted Jesus. He was a coward in the time of testing, a total failure as a friend. But when Peter was out in the boat on the Sea of Tiberius, about 100 yards from shore, the Bible says that Peter, with practically nothing on, grabbed a cloak around him and jumped into the water because John told him Jesus was on the shore (see John 21:7).
This tells me that Peter, in his present response to Jesus, was not trapped in the mistakes of his past. He jumped into the water and swam to shore at breakneck speed. In his brokenness, he wasn’t afraid of Jesus or intimated by Him. He was deeply affected by the sacred Man.
Are you wrestling with a situation where people are condemning you for what you’ve done? If you are, remember that even though people judge you, God forgives you. It’s up to you to reach out, take the forgiveness He offers, and start seeing yourself as God sees you ― forgiven!