It's here: Part 9 of the 9 part series - how to get prayers answered
The Rhythm of The Gospels - D31
DAILY DEVOTIONAL
7/31/20263 min read
He Asked Peter Three Times on Purpose.
Restoration at the charcoal fire — love that reinstates the broken — John 21:17
"He said to him the third time, 'Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?' Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' And he said to Him, 'Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.'" — John 21:17 (NKJV)
Have you ever failed someone you love, publicly, undeniably, in a way that couldn't be explained away, and then had to figure out how to live with yourself afterward?
That was Peter on this morning.
Three weeks earlier he had stood in a courtyard warming his hands over a charcoal fire while Jesus was on trial inside. Three times, to three different people, he had said the same thing: I do not know Him. Not once in a moment of panic. Three times. And then the rooster crowed and Peter went out and wept bitterly, and that weeping had nowhere to go because the One he had denied was dead by the following afternoon.
And then He wasn't dead anymore. Somehow that made the failure harder to carry, not easier.
So Peter went fishing. Back to the water, back to the nets, back to the only life that made sense before Jesus walked up to his boat and changed everything. They fished all night and caught nothing. At dawn a figure appeared on the shore, told them to cast the net on the right side, and the net came up with a hundred and fifty-three fish. John turned to Peter and said it is the Lord. Peter threw himself into the water without waiting for the boat.
He couldn't get there fast enough. And he couldn't have told you whether he was swimming toward the reunion or the reckoning.
When they reached the shore, Jesus had already built a fire. Charcoal, John says, and that word appears only one other place in his Gospel, in the courtyard, on the night of the denial. Jesus chose the same fire deliberately. Not to wound, to heal. To say with the smell of the
smoke before a word was spoken: I know what happened at the last fire. And I built this one anyway.
He fed them first. Bread and fish, shared in the early morning quiet beside the lake. No confrontation. No opening statement. Just breakfast with the men who had abandoned Him. And only after the meal did He turn to Peter.
Simon, son of Jonah. The name that said: I see the man beneath the failure, beneath everything that has happened since we last sat together. Do you love Me?
Three times. Once for each denial, not to reopen the wound but to replace each moment of betrayal with a moment of restoration. And each time Peter answered, Jesus gave him something to do. Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep. He was not restoring Peter to the sidelines. He was restoring him to purpose. The last word Jesus spoke to Peter in this Gospel was not about what Peter had done. It was about where Peter was going.
Follow Me.
Sit with that question today as a personal conversation. Do you love Him? You, personally, right now, with everything you've done and left undone. Answer it honestly. Then receive what follows every honest answer: not a verdict on your past, but an assignment for your future. Feed His sheep. Go into August not condemned. Reinstated.
Scripture Promise:
"Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." — Philippians 1:6 (NKJV)
Prayer:
Father, help me to join the call of Peter, to feed your sheep. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
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