Good morning my students,
How do you feel when someone betrays you? It can be any kind of betrayal. Perhaps your best friend told someone one of your secrets. Maybe a person who has shown you some interest went out to see a movie with someone else. It could even be something your parents did that made you feel betrayed; perhaps your mom was telling your neighbour some of those embarressing baby stories. Or worse, maybe she was showing off those naked baby pictures again.
Betrayal causes a great deal of hurt that is hard for us to defend against because it happens unexpectantly. But how would you feel if you could see it coming; if you knew exactly what was going to happen? Would you still be able to hang with that bestfriend when you knew that he was about to betray you? Could you go to the movies or out for a meal without showing anger toward that person?
Then try to understand the place where Jesus was in this morning's reading. Consider how hard it would have been for him to calmly say those words of Matthew 26:34. Jesus knew what was about to happen and he had already forgiven Peter for it. He did not hold it against Peter as he showed him a great deal of compassion in this terrible moment. It does not mean the pain was any less for Jesus. This was Peter; it must have broken Jesus' heart. Yet, there he was with Peter, not yelling, not throwing him out but instead preparing him for what was about to take place.
Imagine the pain we cause. How many times in a day do we betray Jesus? We do not just betray with our words; we also betray in our actions and our thoughts. How many times have we betrayed Jesus by denying who he is to us by speaking words that do not honour him, by doing things that are contrary to his desire for us and by harbouring thoughts and emotions that do not belong to a follower of Jesus Christ? Have you ever felt ashamed of the name you bear, Christian? This is all betrayal and it hurts and Jesus knew it all before we did it.
The incredible thing is that he still deals with us with tenderness and compassion. He still forgives us. He still renews us. He still pursues us. But often shame keeps us from going to him. It is the reason Jesus saught out Peter on the beach to re-establish the relationship and Peter's purpose. He is doing the same for us. He does not wait for us to go to him, he comes to us. We can't allow shame to stand in the way of this relationship. We need to let it go and receive the forgiveness.
We need to do it now because later will be too late. Jesus told us that if we are ashamed of him in front of men then he will be ashamed of us in front of the Father and this will lead to eternal death. I really hope you don't want that. Take care of it today.
(Students need to taka few minutes and blog your reaction to this)
9 comments:
I felt betrayed many times and i didn't like it at all I felt like to betray that person to get back at them it wasn't nice I felt bad when I got betrayed... I wonder how Jesus and Peter felt when Peter betrayed Jesus.....
I think I would still the person's friend even if I saw that he would betray me because I would see all the fun times I would have with the friend. So I would become his friend and just ask m not to betrasy me or something. We should always obey GOd and never betray him. We should also tell people that we know him and we should not disoown him.
Betraying a friend is probably one of the worst things that you can do, but being betrayed by some one you love can really hurt you, and it's something that you never forget. I can only imagine how Jesus must have felt. I admire the way he handled the situation. It's hard to realize that i probably betray God everyday, with the way that i talk or maybe even with my actions. It's not easy to forgive someone that has betrayed us, but if God is able to do it, then so should we
I would be the person's friends even if he did betray because i know that he did not do it on purpose, unless he actually did it on purpose, if that happened i would be extremely mad but somewhere don't the road i would forgive him and then still be friends.
Some studnets were confused by "blog your reaction". They have responded in their own blogs, rahter thah leaving comments.
Betray is being made every day in life bye everyone.Some people don't even know when they do betray someone.But still God forgives us in whatever we do.
Everyone will probably know betrayal in their life, whether it's to them or them doing it. Sadly, we are human and far from perfect, which is why we need to follow Christ' example. The love, patience, and forgiveness he shows in this passage is incredible. Although I find it annoying how almost everyone feels the need to mention in their comments that they've felt betrayed before. Of course! Welcome to life. And that right there was an example of how I need to work on my love and patience.
I have been betrayed a few times. I didn't like it very much. I wonder how hurt Jesus felt when He knew that Peter would betray Him. Yet, He was very nice to Peter. If I knew that my friend would betray me, I would be mad at them and I wouldn't to my friend for a while.
Pretty much all of us can say we've felt betrayed at some point in our lives (whether it was purposeful or accidental), and it hurts. THe emotional pain it can cause is sometimes so overwhelming that we feel like crying and we don't know what to do. Thing is, often it is over things that don't really matter. Sometimes, it is not whether or not it actually mattered, but just the fact that the person betrayed you hurts, because, if we can't trust them with small things like that, how can we trust them with the stuff that actually matters? When you look at how we feel about those little things that won't even be there in the end, and think about how Peter betrayed Jesus like that, or how our Eternal Father must feel when we betray him, it is rather depressing. Now imagine that times aproximately 6.5 billion... Thank God he isn't human!
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