IS YOUR NAME JUDAS, DO YOU HAVE A DOG NAMED JUDAS, OR DO YOU EVEN HAVE A PET RAT NAMED JUDAS?
What does it mean to be a Christian? What is the difference between Judas and Peter? Love for Christ, — that’s the difference; that’s the message of Christianity. Feed My sheep; feed My lambs; feed My sheep. You’re Mine; do My work based on the fact that you love Me.
How you feel about Christ, how you view Him will determine your heaven or your hell. Peter was a betrayer. And we could see how it happened. He boasted too much. He prayed too little. He acted too fast–drew out a sword and wanted to make a war. He followed too far; he stayed off in the shadows. So you can say, “Yeah, there were some factors in overconfidence and lack of prayer and impulsiveness and cowardice. But Peter was no final disaster.” Grace was operating in Peter’s life.
Grace was not operating in Judas’ life. Grace was operating in Peter’s life because Peter loved Jesus Christ. And John tells us in 1 John 4, “We love Him because He first loved us.” Jesus had set His love on Peter and Peter loved Him in return. They had a relationship of love. That is the deep and compelling attitude of the true believer. It comes down to this: the true believer’s love for Christ is the evidence of salvation. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 16:22 Paul says, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be damned.” It comes to that.
You look at Christianity, you look at the church and all its traditions and you can get very complicated about what it means to be a Christian. It’s this simple. Look at your heart. Do you love Christ? Do you seek His honor? Seek His glory? Does your heart go out in affection toward Him? Do you desire to please Him, exalt Him, love Him, worship Him, commune with Him, hear Him? I’ll sum it up: “If you love Me,” John 14, “you keep My. commandments”–you love His Word. You love Him. That’s how love acts.
Peter was secure because he had a love relationship with Christ. You remember back in Luke 22, verse 31, Jesus said to Peter, “Peter, Satan desires to have you that he might sift you like wheat. Satan desires to have you.” He’s come and asked permission to go after you. He’s going to sift you like wheat. “But when you are converted, strengthen the brethren.”
Sin and guilt do not produce true repentance. They may produce remorse; they may produce regret. They may produce sorrow and sadness, and it can even be so severe that it’s deadly–people kill themselves ’cause they can’t bear the consequences of their evil. But sin and guilt do not produce true repentance.
The horror of Judas’ sin didn’t make him repent. And the horror of Peter’s sin didn’t make him repent. And the ugliness of your sin and the weight of your guilt will not make you repent–it is not enough to make a sinner repent. It is enough to make you sad and full of remorse and make you try to undo it and even make you kill yourself. But it’s not enough to bring you to true repentance.
What makes the sinning, guilt-ridden soul repent is seeing and loving Christ, seeing and loving Christ. Christ becomes all in all, a source of grace and salvation.
Peter loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed in Him with all his heart. He believed that He was the Son of God. He went through a terrible trial, horrible failure, epic disaster, but when his eyes met the eyes of Jesus in the deep night of that trial, he was crushed–not into suicide, but he was crushed into repentance because he loved Christ.
This is the mind of the saved soul. It’s about loving Christ. Do you love Christ? Peter gives a personal testimony when he writes his epistle. He says this in chapter 1, “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”
Peter had lived that. He had lived through an unbelievable trial, a disastrous failure, and in the midst of that he had seen Christ. And Christ had given him a look of love, restored him, recommissioned him, used him mightily. Peter says, “You who haven’t seen Him, you also love Him. And because of that, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, knowing you’re going to receive the outcome of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”
So two men, two disciples, two preachers indistinguishable to their close friends–one is a suicide, one is a saint; one is in hell, one is in heaven. Both betrayed Jesus in very, very adamant, public ways–both at the same time, in the same kinds of circumstances. Similarities are many but no two men could be further apart, further separated than these two–Judas for whom Jesus was a disappointment, whom He resented, if not hated;
Peter for whom Jesus was a Savior, whom he loved.
Judas was a devil who went to his own place, the place he deserved. Peter was a saint who went to the place prepared for him, the place he did not deserve. Because in the end, Judas belonged to Satan and Peter belonged to Jesus.
It’s all about loving Christ. And that’s how you know your spiritual condition. A benediction, Ephesians 6:24, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.”
Leave a Comment
brianhenryblog 