Do You Love Me? Part 1

My middle son was still in diapers when this event occurred.

We were fixing lunch for our company one Sabbath.

My son was running around the coffee table, and I had asked him to stop many times. Next thing, I heard him cry. He had fallen and cut his lower lip open on the edge of the glass cover. At the hospital, the doctor placed four sutures on his lip.

Even though he was a baby and too young to understand gravity, he still bears the scar on his lip. After Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times, Peter became visibly upset. I wondered why Jesus did this—then a light went on in my mind.

Peter had denied His Christ three times, just as Jesus predicted.

This lesson is for all of us. We should not be too hard on Peter.

We do the same thing. I realized that love and trust go hand in hand.

God loves us so much that He gave us eternal life—which we do not deserve. He took our place and broke the chains of eternal death.

He gave our first parents, Adam and Eve, a beautiful garden with everything their hearts could ever want or imagine. But there was one stipulation.

They were not to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden.

It was a test to see whether they would love God enough to trust that He knew what was best for them. One day, Eve wandered away from Adam.

We know the story well. She fell for the lies of the shiny serpent, hook, line, and sinker. And the rest is history. There is controversy as to what would have happened if she had not left Adam’s side or if Adam had not eaten the forbidden fruit, but the fact remains that sin entered this perfect world. Lucifer, the devil, is the master of this planet for now.

But we have great news. We have the blessed assurance of eternal life because of Jesus’ great sacrifice on Calvary for us. He overcame death on the cross so we would not have to die the second death. My friends, let us trust God and relinquish our life into Jesus’ hands, those hands that still bear the scars of His great sacrifice, His great love.

We do not need to understand everything—but we can know Jesus’ love for us.

Hold on to those hands, and one day soon, we will live with Him forever in the homes He has prepared for us in heaven!

Gyl Moon Bateman