by jphilo | Mar 1, 2013 | Church Newsletter Columns
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.
by jphilo | Jun 1, 2012 | Church Newsletter Columns
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness,
in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
James 1: 21
I am obsessed with geraniums. Not all geraniums. Just the heritage geranium that’s been in our family for four generations. In the 1930s, Mom’s grandma gave a cutting from her favorite geranium to my grandma. My grandma gave Mom a cutting in the 1970s. A few years back, Mom gave one to me.
Once it rooted in a glass of water, I planted it in a pot and pampered it all summer long. When the weather turned cold, I hauled the pot inside and placed it in front of a south window. After at winter’s worth of pampering, I snipped off cuttings in March, rooted them in water, and planted them outside come warm weather. Each year, I repeat the process, and this year, heritage geraniums rule our lawn – in flower beds, hanging pots, and container gardens.
Uh-huh, it’s an obsession. But a magnificent one. Because my geraniums are a living illustration of Jesus’ parable of the vine and the vine dresser. Every fall, when the plants are moved inside, they respond in the same way. The biggest, healthiest leaves turn brown. When I pluck them off, clusters of small, bright green leaves sprout in their place. Every March, when I prune the plants, more leaves sprout from the stumps that remain. A few days after the cuttings are placed in water, their biggest, healthiest leaves turn brown and drop. Inevitably, roots sprout from the joints where leaves once grew. When warm weather comes, and I plant the rooted cuttings outside, the same thing happens. Healthy leaves turn brown. New, abundant growth replaces them. Every fall, when the weather turns cold, more vigorous geraniums get hauled into the house than the year before.
Each season, as the geraniums struggle with new transitions, I reflect upon my resistance to changes in my family, my work, and my spiritual life. Once I adjust to new circumstances, I want things to stay the same. Forever. But God doesn’t work that way. He constantly prunes me and all his children. He plunks us into new environments. He strips away our dead stuff. He initiates new growth in the places we once hurt the most. When we submit to the pruning and watering and planting and transformation of his Holy Spirit, we keep growing. We bear fruit. We multiply.
I never met the great-grandmother who passed on the cutting of the geraniums her descendants still tend. I think of her when the blood red geraniums blossoms unfurl, and I know a piece of her lives inside me.
My eye hasn’t seen the God whose word is implanted in the garden of my heart and watered by the Holy Spirit. But when I contemplate the cross and consider his blood shed for sinners, I know he lives within me. Grounded by his love, I begin to grow.
