Under Pressure

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Under Pressure

By Grant Gaines

If you were to ever find yourself watching a Canadian School of Engineering graduation, you would notice that all the graduates receive a ring as they walk across the stage. This ring is not their class ring – it’s something of much more significance.

This ring is not made from silver or gold but from the melted metal of a former bolt, nail, or screw that was once used in a bridge, a building, or some other similar structure that these engineers will soon be constructing. When given the ring, the recent graduates are asked to put it on the pinky of their writing hand so that the ring will make a tapping noise every time they write.

This tapping is a warning to the future builders of their country because, as they are then told, the ring that they are wearing comes from a small bolt, screw, or nail that malfunctioned under pressure due to poor engineering that resulted in the death of their fellow countrymen.

The engineers are taught that a failure to focus on something as small as a screw can result in devastating loss. Maybe we as Christians should heed to the same warning – a failure to focus on something as “small” as daily prayer can result in a devastating loss.

Peter learned this lesson the hard way. Peter, of course, was one of Jesus’s 12 disciples. But even more than just one of the 12 men in all of creation whom the Lord Jesus Christ Himself chose to personally disciple for three years during His earthly ministry, Peter was one of three (along with James and John) who were in the inner circle of the disciples.

Peter was one of three whom Jesus chose to take with Him up on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13). Peter was the only one who Jesus called out of the boat and onto the stormy sea while the other 11 disciples sat and watched (Matthew 14:22-36). Peter was the first of the disciples to declare the truth that Jesus was indeed the long awaited Messiah (Matthew 16:16).

Peter had a long track record of standing by Jesus’s side whether it was on the mountain peaks or in the stormy seas of life…until one fatal evening where he denied his relationship with Christ three times as Jesus stood on trial the morning before His death on the cross (Matthew 26:69-75).

So what caused Peter’s significant slipup? You don’t have to do too much investigating to find the root of Peter’s problem. If you back up just several verses in Matthew 26, you’ll find Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane with the Lamb of God mere hours before He would become the, “…atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2, NIV).

As you could imagine, Jesus was under a great deal of stress right now as He was literally about to bear the burden of the world’s sin upon His shoulders (Isaiah 53:4-5) later that day, so He asked one simple request of the threesome.

Do you remember this request? Surly if we were in Jesus’s place we would ask for them to grab their weapons so we could fend off the quickly approaching Roman soldiers. Maybe we would have asked them to get the get-a-way wagon ready. Or maybe we would have asked them to run and grab all of the people we had healed/raised from the dead as our witnesses to prove our innocence. But in typically Jesus fashion, He made no such request. Instead He made the selfless request that the three would, “Watch and pray that [they] will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Matthew 26:41, NIV).

Notice that Jesus didn’t request that they would pray for His deliverance or His comfort but rather that they would pray for strength to stand under the pressure of temptation. With death and the cross staring Him directly in the face, our God was not looking out for His own needs but the needs of His followers – what a great God we serve!

However, despite His simple and selfless request, after Jesus returned from desperately crying out to the Lord, He found His closest friends asleep…on three separate occasions (Matthew 26:40, 43, 45).

With this backdrop in mind, fast forward to Matthew 26:69-75 where we find Peter standing outside of Jesus’s fixed trial when someone said of Peter, “…You were also with Jesus of Galilee…” (Matthew 26:69, NIV).

“Of course I am!” We would expect to be the words that would naturally flow from Peter’s mouth. But the man who once boldly declared Jesus as the Christ, who stepped out of the boat of comfort and into the stormy sea just to be with Jesus, and who was willing to defend Jesus with a sword against a company of highly trained Roman guards, now whimpered away in fear like a dog with his tail between his legs as he denied his relationship with His Savior…on three separate occasions (Matthew 26:70, 72, 74).

I believe the Holy Spirit inspired the author Matthew to specifically mention that Jesus asked Peter to pray lest he fall into temptation on three separate occasions because we would later see that Peter fell into the temptation of denial, yep you guessed it, three times.

Peter failed under pressure because he first failed in prayer. Peter denied Jesus because he first denied the significance and power of prayer in his life. And Peter was unsuccessful in a big way because he was first unsuccessful in doing the little things right – just as the Canadian engineers are warned against.

And just as Jesus instructed Peter and his buddies to dedicate themselves to prayer so that they may withstand temptation, aren’t we instructed to do the same? 1 Peter 4:7 (NIV) commands us to, “…be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.” And one short chapter later, we are instructed in 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV) to, “Be alert and of sober mind. [Our] enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Are you dedicating yourself to prayer or are you overlooking the power of coming before Jesus, the One, “…who is able to keep you from stumbling…” (Jude 1:24, NIV)? I know you are busy, I know you are tired, and I know you have been a strong Christian for a long time now, but don’t you think that’s the same logic Peter used as he justified catching some “Z’s” rather than praying?

Proverbs 17:3 (NIV) says, “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.” In other words, God is going to allow some trials into your life – count on it. And just as a furnace purifies gold and silver from all of the impurities so that they may be useful, the purpose of these trials is to purify your faith from any impurities that you may be holding onto so that you may be an, “…instrument for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21, NIV).

But just as some gold and silver are tossed out after they go through the furnace because the heat and pressure break them down, trials can do the same to us if we aren’t guarding our hearts on a daily basis in prayer.

Pressure has the power to bust pipes and it has the power to make diamonds – which are you going to be today, a diamond or a busted pipe? Your answer is determined by your determination to prayer.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God,

so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground,

and after you have done everything, to stand” – Ephesians 6:13, NIV

 

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©Grant Gaines 2013

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