Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered,“Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.
When Jesus told him He was going somewhere and that he could not go with Him, Peter was thrown for a loop. He was not on track with this at all. He had gone practically everywhere with Jesus for three years!
Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.
Jesus response: Really?
In the coming days and years, Peter will look back and say, “I just thought I was following Jesus back in 29 AD. Following a risen but unseen Savior, walking by the Spirit is a whole new thing.” And he no doubt mused….”Had the Spirit not taken up residence in me, if Christ were not in me, I would still be thinking absurd thoughts about myself and believing things happen right in this moment.”
As the Father disciplines each of the chidden He receives, so He disciplined Peter over time. Peter was not at all the man he believed himself to be. You could say that Peter was not just driven (in a general sense) by His egotistical flesh, he was also driven (specifically) by his false selves. As Peter’s grew up and figured out how to make things work out in life, he did as all humans have always done, he protected, at all costs, the fragile spirit that was born into a fallen world. As an infant and child it was done as instinctively as a cat landing on its feet. As an accountable teen and a young man, the soul-habits of survival became more deliberate. And as an adult the personality was habituated into who he believed himself to be.
This is a problem when the self-made person (and we all are) are nothing like God created us to be. When we erect walls around our hearts to protect ourselves we construct a barricade between us and love which was (and is) to be our chief vocation. These instinctive and deliberate acts of self-protection also create a barricade between us and truth. Having creates ourselves in our own image has wrecked our capacity to see and hear things without distortion. In other words we all have specific blind-spots of which we are usually the last to discover and to admit.
We were originally created in God’s image. In the kingdom that has come in-Christ and is also coming, God is making all things new. That which has been lost or stolen in regard to our personhood is being restored. That is what Paul is getting at when he says…..
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29
The foreknown and predestined are eventually invited to share the sufferings of Christ through the trials, tests, and whatever else is required so that we might experience the full kingdom gospel, the gospel that not only saves souls for heaven but transforms them along the way. Whether our distorted vision has seen it or not, when we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” this is (among other things) our invitation for God to transform us into the image of His Son and to teach us to live as Jesus did. He was not just our Savior. He was our model! The Spirit’s mission is to see that the children ultimately bear family resemblence.
So, if we press on as disciples we should anticipate that God would expose our false selves (again, we all have them). The old things have passed away, behold new things have come! Like Peter, we will discover that we were not who we thought we were. We will discover in Christ that the old was in fact a sad parody of the self that God in making anew. We will discover with Peter that things don’t often happen right now. God is big on process. It is in the the ebb and flow. the living and the dying of everyday life where we come to truly know Jesus our elder brother (and our All in All).
A contemporary of Jesus’, a man who became known as Pliny the Elder is credited for saying, “Home is where the heart is.” That is not bad for a pagan. Jesus is credited for saying…
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.
THis passage leads me to conclude; “Home is where Christ is.” Christ is in me. Therefore Rob (the old guy) declares, “My heart is Christ’s home.” Together, we foreknown and predestined ones comprise His Body on earth. We individually and collectively have become, in our new and better covenant in Christ what the Temple was in the Old Covenant – the dwelling of God. It was expedient that Jesus ascend to our Father so that we could become the temples of the Holy Spirit – a community of saints destined to become expressions of resurrection life ergo the light of the world – that shines revealing the Way.
Blessed King, my heart extolls your beauty and your wisdom. That I am your son is my chief delight. May my vision be forever restored that I might behold you with even greater clarity. In the midst of whatever unfolds, may You continually be the chief treasure of my heart. I love you Father, Thank you so so much.