Knowing God
Grace and peace be multiplied to you
in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
2 Peter 1:2
Don’t quote me on this, but my gut feeling is that Simon Peter didn’t coin the phrase “Good Friday.” For him, that Friday was not his best day. Not only did the man for whom he risked everything–home life, a fishing business, and his reputation–die on the Friday before Passover, but Peter bore a boatload of guilt. While he watched Jesus die on the cross, conversations from the previous day must have played in his mind.
The slave girl asking, “You’re not one of this man’s disciples are you?” To which Peter replied, “No, don’t know him.”
The question the soldiers asked when he stood with them by the fire. “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?” And his quick response, “Nah, don’t know the guy.”
And to the slave who thought Peter had been in the garden with Jesus, the disciple replied, “No, not me. I don’t know the man.”
Three times Peter denied the truth.
Three times Peter denied knowing Jesus.
Three times Peter denied knowing the Son of God.
Which could explain why Peter hammers home the importance of knowing God in the first eight verses of 2 Peter. In verse two, he prays for grace and peace to be multiplied in believers in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. In verse three, he says that the divine power to live godly lives comes through the true knowledge of Him who called us. And in verse eight, he says the qualities of faith, virtue, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, and love will increase our true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All this from a man who denied knowing God three times. A man who, through Christ’s death and resurrection, through the forgiveness granted him by his risen Lord, and through the power of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost, came to know the truth of words penned by Paul to Timothy: if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.
Once Peter knew the truth of God’s faithfulness, he became fearless. Bold. Courageous. Confident. Unstoppable. He proclaimed the truth to beggars, Pharisees, prison guards, and rulers. He refused to quit talking about the God he knew and who knew him. The God who loved the disciple who denied him three times. The God whose power turned the blackest day in human history into Good Friday.
God’s transforming power should make us long to know God as much as Peter longed for us to know his Savior. It should make us long to know the God who loves us despite our sin and shame. It should make us long to be changed from sniveling deniers of God into bold proclaimers of his glory. Peter’s transformation should make us long for lives redeemed by the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.
Like Peter, we should pray for desire to know the God who can turn our worst days, through the power of Christ, into Good Friday.
