So, the other day I wrote a poem
called Peter the Rock Head, LOL! Laugh Out Loud! It was about Simon Peter being so thickheaded - that he struggled to shake off his cultural fixation. Now this morning, I got to see another side of Peter, and learned just why he is referred to as “Peter, The Rock.” The scripture says, “When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.” Matthew 16:13-20 From this passage you can see so many spiritual things! Peter do not earn his nickname from denying Jesus times, or from struggling with cultural identification. He received his name and his position, both on earth and in Heaven, based on his confession that Jesus is Lord. Peter did not have to confess his sin to any human priest to gain God’s love and acceptance. Instead, He had to respond to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter did not know this information on his own, rather it was revealed to him from Father God. The act of confession starts with acknowledging Jesus as your Lord, not the other way around - by acknowledging your sin first. The truth is without Christ you don't even know how sinful you are. Peter is referred to as an actual rock that the Lord will build his actual church on. This is the opposite of building a church on sand upon which when the wind comes and is able to blow that church down. Jesus is the high priest who oversees His Own Church. He made this very clear when He used a possessive pronoun - “on this rock I will build MY church.” and it is comforting to know that “Hell shall not prevail against it.” It is not like us to think that Hell did not win, especially when Simon Peter was crucified upside down. In fact, most of the disciples experienced gruesome, inhumane deaths. The truth is our reward is in Heaven, not upon this earth. Since Peter is building Jesus’s church, he will receive “the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps Peter is like a concrete mason, who knows how to mix water and earth to make living stones. I hear, it’s very hard work! Peter’s work on the earth, is directly related to what happens in Heaven. “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” At the time, prior to Jesus’s death, “He commanded His disciples not to tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.” But, since the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus our Christ, we have been commanded to tell everyone about Him.
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