I’m reading through my journals from our month that we lived in German in 2006. Besides deciphering the hieroglyphics of my cursive handwriting on graph paper, it’s been really fun to see where I was then. It looks like I was reading and journaling through Romans the whole time.
We were in a city called Oberdorf and talking about the funny rooster that was on top of their steeple there. It had a tall steeple, then a rooster, then a cross on top of the rooster.
I wrote this in quotes, but I can’t find any evidence of what I was quoting. I remember a description of the church that Francis of Assisi was rebuilding that had a picture of a rooster in it. The commentator said it was there to warn us of presumption. That might be what I’m quoting here.
Remember the Cross, and the ease with which you deny it!
I have no idea – but it has quotes in my journal.
It’s true, though. As we imitate Jesus, Peter, Paul, Mary, Mary, and the other Mary, let’s not forget how easy it is to imitate Peter with our quick rejections.
I don’t want to be over-scrupulous and start saying that every little sin I make is me denying Him. I’m sure that’s what i would have used to say. I’m talking bigger deals. When you know what you should do and you don’t. Or when you know that some such thing is wrong, but for the sake of whatever you do it.
We receive the cross by grace, and it keeps us by grace. Simply because it’s an already done and completed event. You can’t undo the past any more than you can lose your heredity that you got from your parents.
In the same way, even though it’s easy to deny it, that doesn’t change the fact that it happened. The beauty is, it happened for a big part because God knows how easy it is for you to deny it.