John 13:36 – 14:4
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.” [37] Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” [38] 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.
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. [2] 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. [3] 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.
Though the other disciples were listening in, Jesus continued his conversation with Peter by saying, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” Jesus says this immediately after telling Peter that he would deny Him three times before the rooster would crow the next morning at dawn. In verse two of John 14 Jesus then tells Peter, as well as the others, that He was going to prepare a dwelling place for him (them) and that H e would come back for him (them) and receive him (them) to Himself so that wherever He is they would be also. Jesus was going to the cross and prepare an abiding place for Peter and the others. That abiding place was going to be Christ Himself. Jesus knew that after Peter’s denial, he would be full of shame and discouragement. He knew Peter would lose heart and would struggle with believing in himself and in his sincerity and ability to follow Jesus. Remember, Peter had declared that even if the other disciples were to deny Jesus, he never would. In one gospel account He told Jesus that he would go to jail or even die before he would ever deny Christ, yet within a few short hours of their conversation in the upper room, Peter would do the very thing he swore he would never do. Have you ever been in Peter’s situation where, having failed, you struggled with all kinds of self-doubts spiritually? Again, in 14:1, Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled; You believe in God, believe also in me.”
Again, after Peter declared that he would lay his life down for Jesus, and Jesus questioning that promise, Jesus continued His conversation with Peter in 14:1 – “Do not let your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me.” In the midst of everything that was about to go down in the next twenty-four hours, the one thing that Jesus wanted them to know was that they could believe in Him. Jesus was saying, “I’m going to receive you to Myself so that you’ll never be concerned with the branch supporting the root, because it’s the root that supports the branch.” – Romans 11:18. Jesus does not want us to believe in ourselves to be able to live for Him. He wants us to trust “ourselves” with Him as the source of our walk with God. It was imperative for Peter to learn this lesson if Christ was going to be able to use him like He did just a little under two months later at Pentecost and beyond. I love what Psalm 73:25 – 26 says, “Who have I in heaven but you, and besides you, I desire nothing on earth. MY HEART AND MY FLESH MAY FAIL, BUT GOD IS THE STRENGTH OF MY HEART AND MY PORTION FOREVER.” If you are trying to live for Christ with all of your heart by sincere determination, your heart will eventually fail. It is often there, face down in a heap, that we discover “Faithful is He who calls you will also will do it.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Christianity is not about how committed you are to Christ. Instead, it’s about being surrendered to how committed He is to you. It is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. The Christian life, from beginning to end, is believing in Jesus and what He can do with and through your life. So if you find yourself broken and disappointed in your Christian walk, be encouraged because Jesus is not disappointed in you. You are just the failure He always thought you would turn out to be. He doesn’t want you to pull yourself up and go at it again, sincerely trying harder this time. He wants you to let go and trust Him, who alone can faithfully live this Christ life.