Follow Him Closely
Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest's house. But Peter followed at a distance. (Luke 22:54) A few hours earlier, Peter vowed to go with Jesus, even to death (and so did all the disciples). He meant every word he said, but he did not know he was lying to himself, and he had no power to do what he vowed. Then they all forsook Him and fled. (Mark 14:50) Peter was now a spectator, looking on Jesus from afar, and that distance would soon provide the space where he would deny he even knew Jesus! Even today, many of us remain unaware of our weaknesses, and our pride blinds us to the fact that we have no power to stand for God on our own. Let us heed the lesson the scriptures teach us through Peter's failure. When we follow Jesus at a distance, we stay somewhere between blindness and sight, inconsistent, lukewarm, disingenuous, and spiritually immature. Claiming to be Christians while refusing to walk clo...