The Bible is a very good book.
It does not present a good light on things and leave out the bad.
We are told the whole story about the saints in the Bible, even the bad things about Jesus.
But why when we talk about the saints that the bed things are so often on our tongues? What bad things about Jesus? What about the two times that he got angry in the temple of God and made a whip and drove the traders out.
I thought getting angry was a sin.
I for most of my life only thought Jesus did it once but later on I read that he did it in his first couple of weeks in ministry and in the last couple of weeks.
Boy what a way to get a bad name! Anger, permissible? It took me a while to come to grips with a Godly anger is quite okay with God.
The scripture says be angry and do not sin.
What about the time when the lady from another country wanted her daughter healed be Jesus.
Jesus said it is not right to give what is hold to a dog or something like that! That was a remarkable insult to the woman in my eyes.
It took a gifted teacher of the word to clear that one up for me.
And what about the time Jesus went to Peters house and Peters mother was sick and Jesus went in and healed her so she could serve them dinner.
I always thought that was a bit sexist.
Why couldn't Jesus and Peter fix their own dinner? I took this up with Jesus once and He told me it would have grieved Peters mother to know that He had visited and she was too sick to wait upon Him.
When I saw it in that light, I was okay with Jesus then.
And speaking about Peter.
All I hear is that he denied Jesus three times.
That's all Christians have to say about him it seems.
It's as though in his position they would not have denied Jesus.
What we don't know is in the sheep and the goats parable, Jesus says what you do to one of the very least of my brethren you do unto me.
People deny the sick and the poor and the man without clothes and a house of his own every week When you deny the people in need you ARE DENYING JESUS and all of us have done it more then three times.
Of course there is the story where Peter got out of the boat and looked at the waves his heart was filled with fear and he sank.
The first thing he did your notice was look unto Jesus and ask for help.
Yet in the midst of trials ourselves Jesus is most often the last one we look to.
We are too busy trying to work out things ourselves.
I haven't read every account of what is happening oversees where all the signs and wonders are happening so I might not be right in what I say here but: Since Peter walked on water I don't know any other person in the history of the world that has walked on water! We as a people are so good at looking at faults in people and making them the thing we remember about people.
You might not have heard this about Peter as you might not have ever heard it preached.
But Peter could walk down the street in the sun and people would scramble to get in the shadow the sun cast on Peter as He was so anointed of God that even the shadow of Peter brought healing.
I don't know many people today whose shadow can heal people.
Why in India you could line the sick up for miles and miles and simply walk down the street on a sunny day and cast your shadow on them all.
What a joy that would be.
No we don't revere Peter for being the one that the Holy Spirit has spoken to before the Holy Spirit had come.
He was the one that could say Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Oh it's preached on in sermons, but then some of those sermons go onto say that a few minutes later Jesus was saying to him get behind me Satan.
The get behind me Satan gets a lot of press in the Christian conversations.
Would Jesus ever say that to us we wonder but we never speak it our loud and yet all Peter was objecting to was that Christ was going to be captured and killed.
An honorable thing I would think in my natural mind.
How many times do you gossip or say something bad about someone else to another.
Get behind me Satan we could hear Jesus whisper if at the time we were sinning we were listening to the Holy Spirit.
In fact if you have an open ear to the Holy Spirit, you will find He checks you when you are going to say something that is not fitting.
But then you'd have to be hearing from the Holy Spirit for that to happen.
Peter was a dynamic man.
First to try and answer the questions that Jesus posed his apostles and first to ask a question when something come to mind, something to hard to understand.
Jesus has a way of speaking that is very profound.
Any person that thinks they have a handle of the parables of Jesus right now, obviously haven't been searching for a deep answer.
They are so profound and Peter he used to pepper Jesus with questions.
Where as John used to take what Jesus said and meditate over it for a long time until the Holy Spirit led him to all truth.
Of course there was the hypocrisy of Peter that treated gentiles worse when in the company of Jews.
Paul picked him on that and from that moment Peter would have repented and CHANGED his behavior.
But the preachers and Christians of today want to harp on it so long.
They are the same.
When they are with Christians they act a different way and when they are with non believers they act another way.
In their behavior they are hypocrites also.
Let's not forget David and his adultery.
That was a big bad sin and then he murdered.
But Jesus came to told us undressing a woman with our eyes and hating our brother is asking to adultery and murder.
And guys, every single one of you are as guilty in your hearts as David and if the situations were reversed at least David would be righteous enough not to point the finger at you.
And the bad things the saints did are amazing to read.
A forefather of Jesus had sex with his daughter in law.
Lot had sex with both his daughters when they got him drunk on two occasions.
The Bible is full of bad accounts to show us that we are all sinners and we all need the power of the grace of God to stop sinning.
So I challenge you.
Stop lusting.
Stop holding unforgiveness in your heart and hating your brother.
Stop being one person to Christians and another to the unsaved.
Stop judging others.
If you are guilty of any of these.
Get down on your knees and repent before the living God.