The first thing that jumped out at me in today's Gospel (John 13:21-33, 36-38) was that it began with Jesus being deeply troubled. Jesus knows everything that is about to play out. He knows it it His father's will, and He is still deeply troubled by it. We see this more fully when He is praying in the garden for God to "take this cup" from Him. We know how the story is going to play out and in the end Jesus wins, but sometimes we skip past the human elements of Jesus. We forget that although He is fully God, He is also fully man!
The next part that grabbed my attention is the line that Satan entered Judas. Satan prowls this earth looking for souls to devour. If He can enter into someone who literally walked with Jesus daily, how much more must we be on guard? How much more intentional and diligent must we be when it comes to our faith?
The last point I want to share is a a new thought for me that came from the meditation found at dailyscripture.net.
We know Judas betrays Jesus, but we also see the foreshadowing of Peter's betrayal of Jesus. I had not every really looked at the 2 side by side before today. Satan can sure mess with things! Satan was directly in the mix with Judas's act. Judas was greedy and His heart was all sorts of twisted. He betrayed Jesus deliberately and with evil intentions.
Peter, on the other hand betrayed Jesus, but not out of evil. He was fearful! He truly loved Jesus. He truly intended to follow Jesus wherever He went, He was just too weak to do it!
Jesus knows Peter's heart and is able to show Him compassion and grace. We are gonna mess up over and over again because we are human. We must continue to seek Jesus with all our heart and remain vigilant and not allow Satan to twist and distort it.
It's time to get our hearts prepared to follow Jesus to that cross. It's time to lean on Him and His strength to carry us when we just don't feel like we can go on. This path is not easy but it will lead to life everlasting!
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