Between You and God

READ: LUKE 22:54-62; JOHN 21:15-25; ROMANS 3:23-24

Will I go to hell for how I am? This question invaded my mind on too many occasions for me to count, especially after observing other people’s Christian walks. Usually, they appeared to be extremely holy people who had their righteous lives intact. Nothing fazed them, they committed no wrongdoings—at least, not in public—and they referred to their prayer lives often. Reading the Bible and speaking to God through prayer seemed like second nature to them. It didn’t for me.

I struggled for years to pray and read my Bible daily. But it wasn’t that I lived my life separately from what I heard on Sundays or that I didn’t even think about God throughout the week. I just had a difficult time setting up good habits. During that time, I kept wondering about God’s tolerance of my lackluster performance. Especially, I thought, in comparison to my clearly better-suited fellow humans. They seemed much holier than I was.

Cue teenage me discovering John 21. It’s uncoincidentally located right after Jesus reinstates Peter. Peter had denied Jesus three times before Jesus’s death on the cross. But now, in this passage, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And each time, when Peter says yes, Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs… Shepherd my sheep… Feed my sheep.” This echoes the three times Peter denied Him, showing that Jesus is reinstating Peter as a disciple. Jesus goes on to tell Peter the kind of death he will die to glorify God, and then He says to Peter, “Follow me.” But Peter notices another disciple, John, is following them. Peter asks Jesus, “What about him?” That’s when Jesus said one of the most liberating things I’ve ever heard: What’s it to you?

The last thing Jesus wants us to do is selfishly worry about others’ relationships with Him—that’s not our concern. The truth is, we all fall short of God’s holiness, but Jesus has given each of us grace, and that is the grace we are to be concerned with. You are free to focus on your relationship with Him, not the apparent relationships of others with Him. • Carson D. Jacobs

• In what ways might you be focusing on others’ relationships with Jesus instead of your own?

• How do you think you can develop healthy Bible-reading and prayer habits? Don’t worry about doing it just like someone else—find out what works for you! For example, how do you usually prefer to talk on the phone? Pacing? Sitting down? Figure out which way is most comfortable for you and try mimicking that while praying.

“If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” John 21:22 (CSB)