LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Peter's Conversion
"Then, when the Lord returned, he looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, which had said to him: Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times" (Luc. 22:61).
This is the point of crisis that the apostle Peter had to experience in order to know himself and to know that in him there was a great limitation for the purposes of God. "And Peter, going out, wept bitterly" (Luke 22:62).
This crying was much more than just grief; it implied recognizing that in his natural capacities he could not serve the Master, he could not follow the way of the cross. Surely Peter remembered from the words that he himself had said before: "Though everyone takes offense at you, I will never take offense... Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you" (Matt. 26:33, 35).
But the Lord's response, anticipating Peter's experience, is: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has asked you to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith does not fail; and you, once returned, strengthen your brothers" (Luc. 22:31-32). It was like telling him: "Peter, you are going to go through a bitter experience. What you don't understand now, you will understand then, once you go through the crisis, once you return, once you convert".
We want to emphasize the word convert, become. When we met the Lord, our spirit was touched, and we converted to him. However, we also need a new form of conversion. When the Lord says to Peter: "once you return", it is like saying: "when you convert". Hadn't Peter been converted, had he not turned from his things, from his world, when the Lord called him for the first time? Didn't we, when the Lord called us for the first time, leave the world behind to follow him?
But here, the conversion of which the Lord speaks to Peter has to do with turning from himself to Christ, with denying himself and not denying Christ. When we do not deny ourselves, when we are still turned towards ourselves, we are denying him. There is still something irreducible, that is standing in us, and that we have not surrendered to the Lord. That is why this word is necessary, because the Lord wants us to surrender everything we are to him.
Undoubtedly, what is most difficult for us to surrender is our self. We can give up all other things, give up our goods, our time; leave our jobs to follow the Lord and serve in his work. But the Lord will not be satisfied until the day we give everything to him.
Our half surrender does not serve the Lord. It is not enough that you give things to the Lord. He wants you, he wants your soul, your self, surrendered to him. Because they cannot both remain – Christ and the self in us. Rather, what God wants is for Christ to remain standing, and for the soul to become a servant who prostrates himself before his footstool, acknowledging that he is the one who should reign on the throne of every heart.