Peter the Humble Bold One scene 3

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” (Acts 2:1) They were together in humility and love, released from fear and bitterness and deep into the healing grace of God. They were together without barriers: men, women, different social backgrounds and experience but accepting each other without reserve. For the first time they could be in the same room and feel completely at ease. They were transparent and honest. They were not free of everything from their past but they were free of everything that had surfaced up to this point.

Experiencing this amazing unity that Jesus had invited them into at the last supper created a growing passion to share this love and peace with others all around them outside who were living in emptiness and pain. In dwelling on and rehearsing the many acts and words of Jesus they were drawn into deeper sympathy with the passion of God to draw many more into this profound, healing love. They shared this growing, mutual desire but were not sure how to best go about it. And they remembered Jesus' clear instruction to wait until they had received power, whatever that meant.

They had little idea what it would look or feel like, but they were very confident that when they received this gift of power from Jesus there would be no missing what it was. So they focused their attention and prayers on Jesus and on the Father in Jesus' name as He had invited them to do, and they set their hearts on craving a deeper experience of sharing the passion they sensed emanating from the heart of Jesus and His Father.

At this point they heard something that had seldom been heard since the Garden of Eden recorded in Genesis 3:8. They heard the sound of God approaching and began to experience the fire of His presence. All of their senses came alive as their Creator approached just as He had done in the Garden. The whole house filled with electric, fiery intensity as the emotions and feelings they had been experiencing toward God and His Son were amplified and accelerated. It was not so much that their feelings were different now, but that they were confirmed and empowered with supernatural authentication and boldness. They began to feel for the first time the fearless, holy boldness that they had seen so many times in Jesus and they now could begin to understand better what had always before somewhat mystified them.

The intensity of this revelation of God's presence was not limited to the senses of the believers gathered in the upper room. It was a physical manifestation that rocked the ground like an earthquake and sent shock-waves throughout the surrounding city resembling the roar of a tornado. But unlike a destructive tornado this did not strike fear into people's hearts so much as great curiosity. The sky was not filled with the angry clouds of a storm but they could clearly hear the powerful sound of hurricane-force winds coming from a single building in the city. This was amazingly strange and people quickly emptied their houses and filled the streets around the building pushing and shoving to see what might be causing this mysterious “storm”.

Meanwhile inside, on the roof and around the balconies, the believers were filled with the very power of the Almighty Himself and spontaneously burst into the language of heaven – praise and gratitude and celebration of the goodness and awesome beauty of God. As they did so they discovered they now had new-found expertise in the multiple languages of earth equipping them to more plainly communicate the wonderful love and the essence of salvation they were experiencing to everyone who would care to listen. The burden of their message was focused on one thing alone – (2:11) ...speaking of the mighty deeds of God!

As the curiosity, amazement and even criticism continued to increase in the rapidly growing crowd outside, the believers realized that someone must be their spokesperson to effectively share what was now their all-consuming passion. As they looked around at each other they immediately knew who could best express the real meaning of what they were experiencing. He was one who had gone the lowest both publicly and in his own esteem. But he had experienced healing in his heart from Jesus and was accepted, loved and forgiven by every person in this new family. Now the time had come to restore him to the position of respect and leadership that Jesus had prepared him for in the public arena, the very place where he had humiliated himself and his beloved Master.

Verse 14 says that Peter was “put forward” as their spokesman. He did not assert himself or try to be reinstated. He was now deeply humble and quiet but very devoted in his passion for the One who had given everything and stopped at nothing to save and love and redeem this unreliable, loud-mouthed impulsive sailor that had often caused Him trouble and grief. The group was unanimous in pushing Peter, the redeemed fisherman-now-turned-shepherd to the front to express and demonstrate most eloquently the redeeming love that was overflowing from all of their hearts.

When Peter opened his mouth, what now flowed out uninhibited was his passion for his best Friend and mighty Saviour and his intense longing for everyone else to share in this incredible new experience with him. The people standing behind him were overflowing with the same love and presence of God, now supercharged with boldness and fearless joy after the reception of the Holy Spirit received from Jesus. The people in front of him were very curious, baffled and quite ready to listen. Peter sensed that this was now the time to release the revelations Jesus had opened to him in Scripture over the past few days. Peter had finally begun to see the bigger picture from God's perspective and had let go of his own small agenda for an earthly kingdom full of pride and self-important people. All of the believers now shared a single focal point – Jesus and His exalted position in the Universe.

The Jews gathered in front of Peter had a shared paradigm that everything else had to be filtered through; they were sons of Abraham and all concept of royalty and authority must come through King David. They had ended up making gods of their beliefs and their ancestors. Peter's first words to the Jews directly addressed this problem of idolatry. Peter had heard the angels at Jesus ascension clearly identify the One who would return to claim the earth as “this Jesus”, the same One they had just spent 3 ½ years getting to know. Now Peter used this same phrase at the beginning, middle and end of his first speech to explain what was happening right now both on earth and in heaven. He wanted the Jews to broaden their perspective to see the real issues as God sees them. He was acting as a personal witness as Jesus had asked Him to do. And in the process of testifying about the identity of Jesus he also exposed the false basis of the Jew's faith and their need to transfer their allegiance and reverence from earthly objects and people to heavenly truth and personalities, particularly to God Himself and His Son. Peter's message was simple and direct – “stop trusting in your heritage and your religion to save you and accept God's provision of redemption through Jesus to save you. You, in your obsession for your man-made religion , ended up torturing and killing God Himself. It's time to surrender! Lay down your armed resistance to God's love for you. Be baptized – immersed in the truth about God's character as well as in water – and you too can experience with us this incredible life-energizing, fulfilling experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit of God Himself.”

He explained that Jesus had as a human come under the covenant requirements of humanity's covenant with Satan. Jesus then paid the price of breaking that covenant by His death. Since he was also the original Creator and owner of the human race He could use His death, both as a human under the law and as God on earth, to free all who would accept Him from the covenant power of death and sin over them. By being baptized into His death they could then be free of their “deal with the devil” and could live in a new covenant relationship with their life-loving Creator and Redeemer and experience eternal life.

Peter the Humble Bold One scene 2 (click for next scene)

Acts 1:14 says “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” Their minds and hearts for the first time ever were experiencing unity in humility and joy. The disciples had spent years arguing over who was the greatest and had only succeeded in hurting each other and wounding the tender heart of their Master. They had had such a difficult time understanding His emphasis on a kingdom based in the heart instead of on rules and religion. They had treated women as second-class humans unworthy of credibility or respect. Now they realized that these women had a much better grasp of matters of the heart than they had. Their own hearts were just waking up and they now realized their great immaturity. These women were vitally necessary as a resource of wisdom and heart training as the men began trying to collate their left-brain knowledge with their newly awakened right-brain affections for Jesus.

They were all with one mind. For the first time they were not only using both sides of their brain usefully but their newly acquired humility and love was bringing the full diversity of minds, hearts and personalities together in creation of a new composite unity that amazingly in a collective way resembled the way Jesus had been known to them over the last few years. Together in joy – and only together – they were emerging as a unified body sharing and displaying the emotions, desires, disposition and passion of God.

As they connected with each other in humbleness and deference, as they eagerly listened to each other share their experiences of Jesus, their hearts burned with intense desire to know God much more, to recapture every word of Jesus' ministry to them, to remember His face and emotions and redeem the time they had squandered in self-focus when He was physically with them. They began to act on His words and press their prayers more and more intensely to the throne of God. They released more and more sinful, divisive attitudes and memories in open confession and tears of repentance. They released every grudge and prejudice and their hearts received more and more love and light replacing lies about God and each other with liberating truth. Knowing God became their overwhelming obsession and everything else faded in significance in their burning desire to seek His face.

Peter's life and disposition were radically changed from what he had been before. Previously he had little time for the Scriptures. He accepted that they were an integral part of his religion and culture, but he had always depended on his own instincts to figure out what was right even though this had earned him a number of rather strong rebukes from Jesus at times. Peter had felt that he was capable, maybe even a little more capable than others, of discerning what was right and wrong. He felt that if he just listened to his heart and followed his instincts that sooner or later he would come out on top. He had not realized the deceptiveness of his sinful heart, his human nature, until it had betrayed him and caused him to betray Jesus.

Now he was realizing that his own natural heart was not trustworthy, it could not be depended on to make him a righteous person. Living from his heart was a very positive attribute that Jesus had appreciated in him and even encouraged. But he had come to realize that he needed to have a new heart that was not originated from himself. He was now learning for the first time how to live from the heart Jesus had given him.

He was also learning the enormous importance of having his heart surrounded and protected by Scripture and the Words of God. Jesus had spent years trying to get His disciples to understand this vital principle, but it was after the resurrection before it finally began to sink in for most of them. The event on the Emmaus road had directly addressed this issue. Nathanael's penchant for study now had new respect from the others. All of them now willingly and with new fervor turned to the Scriptures to discover the treasures Jesus had so often spoken of .Connecting their re-birthed hearts and their freshly opened minds they entered into a new realm of perception and understanding of God, of life and the Kingdom of Heaven that they deeply regretted not entering years before. If they had not been so blinded by their all-consuming obsession with promoting themselves and their selfish interests they could have better understood and appreciated the words and spirit that Jesus had been offering them and he would have been able to give them so much more. As it was, they had blocked His progress with them to a great degree and they now realized how much they had ended up cheating themselves out of enormous blessing from the presence of Jesus when He was there with them

As they bonded closer and closer to each other and excitedly poured over the scrolls of the Old Testament, a particular Psalm impressed Peter's mind and a conviction began to settle on him. Maybe Nathanael brought the passage to Peter's attention or maybe several did. Up to this point he had been the most subdued and quiet of the group. His new humility was real and noticeable. This had actually opened the opportunity for others in the group who were naturally quiet and thoughtful to more freely express what was in their heart, to share their experience and convictions. Peter no longer dominated the discussions and instead was now eager to listen and care about what others felt and perceived. The discussion of recent events had naturally involved Judas' role and they were all ashamed at how much they had admired his personality and had been influenced by his self-promoting spirit. He had always had a subtle undercurrent of criticism, of questioning the decisions of Jesus. They had often sympathized with Judas' views and opinions and found themselves at odds with Jesus as a consequence. This had always baffled them and they had many times concluded that Jesus just didn't understand or appreciate their deep desire to exalt Him and assist Him in fulfilling the grand mission of becoming the heroic Messiah of the Jews.

Now as they looked back on the events of that tragic, terrifying weekend, they saw things with startling new perspective. The unmasking of the results of selfishness and bitterness, not only in Judas' life but in their own as well. But although most of them had forsaken Him, Judas had rejected Jesus' passionate appeals to his heart beyond the point of return and had destroyed his life in the service of Satan. From their study of Psalm 109 they saw a prophetic description of Judas and his final demise. As they discussed these things with mixed feelings and growing understanding, Peter was convicted that he must align and unify the group of believers with what was becoming clear in the Word before them. They must not only understand Scripture, they must act on it.

Moved by the Spirit of God, he stood up to speak in the midst of his new close family. He had lost all confidence in himself, but he now had a new and growing confidence in the Word of God. He decided to present a proposal based on the Word before them and submit it to the will of the collective body of newly bonding believers. He was impressed that Jesus had worked especially with twelve people during His ministry for some good reason and that reason had not ended with His death and the death of Judas. Jesus' often repeated and emphasized goal for His disciples had been one word – witnesses. He had had them practice it and even had a backup team of seventy trained along with them. His focus had always been on the issue of witness. Their identity was to be one thing only – a witness. They had thought they were to be rulers and administrators and executors in various ways in His conquering kingdom. But He had always insisted that they were to simply be witnesses.

Now they remembered His instruction and realized that the time was ripe for the witnesses to witness. But now one witness was missing, and the Scriptures seemed to be clear that someone should replace him. Peter with the others carefully considered what the primary qualifications should be to select a replacement. There agreed there were two basic requirements that must be considered as qualification for replacing Judas as one of the original twelve, two elements necessary to be a true and faithful witness. (v.25) This position required one with a servant attitude which they now recognized was most definitely missing in Judas, and the other was to be one who had been delegated to carry a message – an apostle. They now realized that since their one job was to be passionate witnesses that this qualification had to be primarily a condition of the heart as well as external involvement in the life and ministry of Jesus while He was with them. Peter realized that though the believers could easily select someone based on that person's history of association with them over the past few years that there was no way they could look into a person's heart and truly evaluate his passion for Jesus. They had failed miserably in understanding another person's heart condition in their long admiration of Judas and they now realized they must not trust their own perceptions again. Only God can read the heart and He must be the one to make a final selection. So they narrowed down the selections to two people based on the best external qualifications of time spent with Jesus in ministry and then humbly asked God to make the best choice based on heart qualification.

Peter the Humble Bold One scene 1 (click for next scene)

Jesus' instructions just before His ascension began to effectively rearrange Peter's traditional concepts about the identity and work of the Messiah. His incorrect picture of God and the Messiah learned from and deeply entrenched in his nation's religion and culture were very difficult to release. But they had to be exposed and renounced in the light of the actions and attitudes demonstrated by the real Messiah. The deep assumption of an earthly, force-based, Jew-favoring kingdom was nearly impossible to overcome even in the face of overwhelming evidence and instruction by Jesus to the contrary.

But once again Jesus laid out His plan for addressing the world and its salvation. Acts 1:3 says that for 40 days He spoke to them of the things concerning the Kingdom of God. Then once more He gave them specific instructions as to where to be and what to look for just as He had done at His resurrection. The last time they had completely failed to follow His instructions to go ahead of Him to Galilee to meet Him, instead, cowering in terror and despair and unbelief in the upper room. This time Peter's mind and heart were beginning to be more attentive, not so preoccupied with his own plans for Jesus, though still somewhat confused by the misleading beliefs of his “church”.

Just as He had done before the crucifixion, Jesus engages in joy-capacity building activities of eating and being together with His disciples. He again gives them instructions for the present to prepare them to be ready for a future He has planned for them. “Stay in Jerusalem this time. Wait. Remember the promise of the Father you heard me talk about at the last supper. In fact, when you remember that you will begin to remember all the other things I shared with you then that you didn't hang on to. I spoke a lot about joy, about my deep desire for us to be with each other and the Father's equally intense desire for the same thing. I petitioned the Father at that time to send the Holy Spirit and He always gives me what I ask for. I prayed for unity, not only between you, me and the Father but that will include all of you with each other. Now let's get back on track where you got off and let's focus again on these fundamental elements of the real Kingdom. It is not your business, contrary to nearly everything you have been taught by your religious authorities, to figure out dates and have the scoop on how events will happen to fulfill prophecies. That's God's business, not yours. Your part in all this is to keep your focus on ME. Be obsessed with my passion and my interests. It is not dates and world events you need to know, it is ME you need to know – intimately, passionately, until you are completely swallowed up in my love for you and have lost all interest in self. Then you will be immersed in and by the Holy Spirit who will empower you supernaturally to simply be witnesses of me, the Truth about God. And your witness will be a seismic event so powerful that it will explode out from the epicenter of Jerusalem, the city of God, like an unstoppable tsunami that will sweep across Judea, Samaria and will not be stopped until it reaches the remotest parts of the earth.”

Then He was drawn up into heaven creating an intense, emotional desire for Him in the hearts of His followers that would sharpen their focus on remembering His presence and words with far more interest than they had ever done before. Without His physical presence they realized that they had to take seriously His instruction to “eat His flesh and drink His blood” to become one with Him. They turned to each others recollections and to the scriptures like never before. They listened to each one's differing perspective and memories of how He had related to them and spoken to their hearts. For the first time they began to deeply appreciate the rich diversity of each one's experience and unique memories as each testified how Jesus had profoundly met their deepest needs, healed their pain, ravished their hearts with His love and was making them complete and whole.

They began to let go of their prejudices and pride and bitterness against each other in a growing eagerness to learn more and more about their best friend – about God – in each other's witness that they had never before cared about. Their differences, grudges, conflicts and inner lies began to be exposed and to float to the surface in the sea of love that quickly began to engulf them, fed by the melting glaciers that had for so long kept their hearts rigid and frozen. As their hearts continued to melt in each others presence they renounced the lies in their minds and turned to each other for reconciliation and forgiveness. This tended to further heat the sea of love and accelerate the melting process until they began to desire nothing more and nothing less than to be fully consumed and absorbed by the very fiery passion of God Himself revealed in Jesus, their friend, their Redeemer, their lover and obsession.

As Peter sat in awe looking around the room at what was happening to this mixed group of disciples, his heart was stirred with unfamiliar emotions and his mind was brimming to capacity with a new understanding of what true reality is. His craving for power and preeminence had dissolved in his humiliation at what these attributes had caused him to do in denying his own Redeemer. But Jesus' faithfulness to him had far out-weighed his guilt and he was still accepted and loved, not only by Jesus but by His disciples, Peter's former “peers”, and even by Jesus mother.

Here were many other women too, women who had stubbornly stayed by Jesus, displaying amazing courage and loyalty in the face of enormous hostility while most of the men associated with Jesus had collapsed and disappeared in cowardice and fear. The only men who even partially stood with Jesus were mostly His “closet” followers like Nicodemus and Joseph. They, ironically, had lived in bondage to fear and cowardice so long they were ready to step away from it just when the other disciples were being swallowed by it.

Here was Mary Magdalene, the one person Jesus had identified as having a better grasp of the gospel than anyone else. Peter and the others had harbored disdain and even disgust for her fueled by Judas' critical spirit. Peter felt deeply ashamed of how he had treated Mary and how he had felt toward her for so many years. Now after his own public disgrace he was beginning to identify with her feelings and a new appreciation for her was growing in his heart. He could learn a lot from her about Jesus if he should take the time to listen to her story.

Over there was Jesus' mother and even His earthly brothers. Oh how much had changed in the past few days and weeks. Mary had gone from bewilderment to intense grief and then to amazement and joy as she watched her Son live out the very life of God and then die the worst death of a vile, rotten sinner. Yes, she had definitely experienced a “sword in her own heart”. But after the resurrection she had realized that her relationship to Jesus had dramatically changed. At the cross her job of mother had terminated. She had been given a replacement son in the person of John. Now her relationship to Jesus was no different than all the other followers. Jesus was her God, her Saviour, her Redeemer. The only difference was that she had the wonderful privilege of being a repository of unique and intimate memories of His whole life on earth unlike any other human. She too now had Peter's new respect and would be an invaluable source of heart mentoring for him as he began to synchronize his own new heart with God's heart and those of His children.

For the first time in her life Mary's step-sons were now in sympathy with her. They had always been a source of pain to her heart as Jesus was growing up and throughout all His ministry. They had even swayed her to doubt Jesus herself at times and they had openly undermined Jesus' claims and influence in the public arena. They had been annoyed and irritated by Jesus' consistent sweetness of disposition and forgiving spirit and they had many times made His life very difficult. They had always been deeply embarrassed by Jesus' claims to be God and even their mother's version of the circumstances of His birth. This had cast a stigma on the whole family that they felt unfairly affected their own reputation and so they had been quick to join the religious leaders in their disbelief and ridicule of His virgin birth. They hoped to lessen their own disgrace by sympathizing with His enemies. Even for a time after the crucifixion they lived in unbelief and shame.

But when He appeared to them after the resurrection with the same soliciting tenderness and complete absence of condemnation that had so annoyed them most of their lives, their unbelief melted into repentance. They had seen the true evil and malice of the leaders they had sought to harmonize with exposed during His final hours, and the contrast between the spirit of Jesus and that of the leaders became painfully obvious. Now, in the upper room with their mother and His other friends, they confessed their animosity and unbelief and, surprised by joy, they opened their hearts to accept His love, forgiveness and Lordship in their lives. Yes, Peter was in awe.

Peter's Recovery - scene 6

“And when He had spoken this, He said to him, 'Follow Me!'

Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved (John) following them. John 21:19,20.

Peter has noticed that John has developed over the years a very intimate relationship with Jesus. John has entered into the experience of what following Jesus is all about better than Peter has done. John was learning to live from his heart John was closest to Jesus at the last supper and was the only one close enough emotionally to Jesus to ask and receive key information about His betrayer. John was still following Jesus closely and now Peter felt for the first time like an emotional insider himself. But he starts to slip into his old habits of thinking by wanting to know the scoop on John. Jesus had just revealed to Peter how he was to die and now Peter asks what is in John's future. After all, John had asked for and received the scoop on Judas, the most respected disciple among them at the time. Now Peter wants to use his close relationship to Jesus to get personal information about other people.

But Jesus immediately clarifies the parameters of this relationship. “You do not have responsibility for knowing information that is personal between someone else and Myself. Nor do you need to know God's plans for their future. Your focus and obsession is to know Me and follow Me passionately with abandon and loyalty. Yes John has been following me and still is. Yes, John and I share things with each other on a very intimate basis. In a very profound way it is like we are married in a way. And like a marriage there are things that are not any one else's business that are shared between the two people.

“Peter, you are learning to have that same relationship with me too. But you are different than John and you must keep your attention of following hard after me and following my directions for yourself. Your relationship to others should be like John the Baptist had. That of a close friend of the Bridegroom.

“When you were younger, more immature, when you were Simon the product of your father John, you were self-centered and independent. You girded yourself, you took care of yourself and were proud that you did not need help from anyone else. You also went wherever you felt like with little thought to those around you. Peter, you have always been very self-sufficient and self-confident. But that was actually your weakness. Now you are starting to understand what real growth is and what it means to mature. You are starting to grasp what I have been trying to teach you and model for you these last few years.

“As you continue to grow in your understanding of reality and the true kingdom of heaven, you will mature to the place where you will be so humble that, like I have just done, you will willingly stretch out your hands and release your rights to yourself and surrender to be led where the old Simon would never wish to go. You will lose your life for My sake, but you will really be finding life as I told you before.

“The way this will come about is very simple and it is really a repeat of what I asked when we first met. Simply follow Me. You have watched me and how I have related to people. I have shown you a radically different face of God than you had ever imagined before. Now, abide in My love and imitate Me. Be filled with My passion and see life from My perspective and you will mature to the place where you will willingly give your very life in the same way as I did.”

Peter's Recovery - scene 5 (click here for next scene)

John chapter 21 where this story is told begins the story by always referring to Peter as “Simon Peter” consistently. Simon was his original name before he met Jesus. Peter was a name Jesus had given him soon after their first encounter and had some special meaning between them. So the name Simon Peter says something about how he was feeling and how he saw himself at this time. He felt like a strange mixture of his identity before he met Jesus and his new identity created by Jesus and developing during the time spent with Him.

But when Jesus began talking to Peter's heart pain, He addressed him only as Simon, son of John. This was his old identity and also reminded him that his old self was inherently rooted back to his earthly father and all the baggage that that involved. Jesus was asking if the old Simon loved Him with selfless, unconditional love. Peter knew the old Simon all too well. It was the old foul-mouthed, quick-tempered hot-headed cowardly Simon that had responded in fear and self-protection when he had under pressure denied his connection to Jesus. He discovered to his dismay that “Simon” was very much alive and well inside him and still very capable of all the foul cursing and ear-stinging swear word unique to sailors. He had been stunned to realize that even after 3 ½ years of developing his new identity called Peter in the company of Jesus that Simon the sailor, son of a sailor named John, had really not disappeared after all.

Three times Jesus addressed him only as Simon, son of John with no mention of the name Peter that He had given him. And after twice asking him if he loved Jesus with agape love and hearing that Simon could only love him with a friend and brother-type love, Jesus then asks if “Simon” can even do that much. Can the old Simon really be trusted to even love as a friend or as a brother? Is the old nature capable of loving God at all?

At this point it is the “Peter” identity that is deeply grieved. He now was led deep into his shame and pain, to the very core of who he was inside. His shame, he now realized, was not just a result of what he had done, but was rooted in who he was. He had to acknowledge and embrace his old identity and all its shamefulness, cowardice and selfishness in the presence of Jesus, the One who had created a new name and identity for him to experience. Peter was his the name describing what Jesus had placed deep within his heart as his true identity and that Jesus had been drawing out of him over the past years they had spent in close relationship. But now Peter recognized that he had not yet died to his natural, fleshly Simon identity and it had betrayed his own affections for Jesus.

After this final revelation of his untrustworthy old nature by Jesus' probing and painful questions, Peter bursts out with uncharacteristic weeping and throws himself totally on the mercy and complete knowingness of Jesus and asks Him to simply read his mind for Himself. He now knows that Jesus can understand the confusing and complicated, convoluted and contradictory emotions in his heart far better than Peter will ever be able to do. He still knows he cannot trust himself to love Jesus with the consistent, reliable, never-failing disinterested love that Jesus has always poured on him. But he also knows that something inside himself desperately wants to love Jesus and he now throws the answer for Jesus' question back to Jesus since He really is the only One who really knows the answer.

The truth about myself is beyond my ability to comprehend. So I must constantly trust Jesus' knowledge of me, agree with His revelations about me, and rest all my hope in His passionate love for me even in my shameful condition.

What is so fascinating is that from this point in the narrative onward he is only referred to as Peter, not Simon Peter or Simon, but only Peter. He now realized he can live from the new heart Jesus gave him as he continues to know and experience Jesus' complete acceptance of everything about him. He no longer has to hide in shame and disgrace. He has learned how to face Simon and let Simon be crucified with Christ as Paul described in Gal. 2:20. Now Peter, the heart identity Jesus created him to be, can begin to really grow and mature as he thrives in the unlimited love and power and grace of Jesus, his personal Saviour. He has experienced the conversion that Jesus foretold a few days previous in the upper room as they shared the Passover together.