Sun 9 Jul

In Mark 14:27-31, the Lord Jesus tells His Twelve Disciples that He will be arrested by the Jewish leaders, and that when this happens they will run away. The story reminds us of the three thing that we need to know. First, the Lord speaks gently to His men about their coming failures. He tells them in advance in order to assure them that when it happens, He will forgive them. He wants us to understand that, even when we fall, His arms are open to us to come back to Him. The second thing to notice from this passage is similar to the first: the Lord speaks gently to His men about their coming failures. He has compassion on us in our weakness and our sins. Third, Peter and the others learned their own weakness when they sinned and learned to admit their own faults, so grew in Christian maturity. God goes on forgiving our sins - we are justified once and forever - and we never lose that. Still, we have the duty to grow in obedience to Him. A Sunday school teacher once asked a class of eight year old girls, "What does the word 'repentance' mean?" One child answered, "Ma'am. it means we have to be sorry enough to quit."