authentic,authentic living,bold,boldness over fear,choosing faith over fear,Divine Law,divine presence,divine wisdom,embodying faith,fear,freedom,fruit of the Spirit,generative wisdom,heart-centered living,Holy Spirit,humility,inner transformation,Integrity,living authentically,Love Your Neighbor,new covenant,spiritual freedom,

The Heart-Centered Way: Embody Divine Law for Authentic Living

In a fragmented world where decisions pull you in every direction—scheming strategies clashing with visceral drives and fleeting emotions—the heart-centered way invites you into the transformative rhythm of Divine Presence.

As Jeremiah 31:33 declares, God promises to inscribe His Divine Law not on stone tablets, but deep within your heart, unlocking authentic living as a flow of embodying faith that reshapes your core. Crucially, this isn’t rigid rule-keeping; it’s an inner transformation fueled by the Holy Spirit within, granting spiritual freedom to navigate life’s complexities with coherence and joy.

Drawing from the wisdom of Psalm 119’s honey-sweet meditation and 2 Timothy’s equipped endurance, we’ll explore how this New Covenant blueprint harmonizes your God-given centers—mind, spirit, and drive—for decisions that sow abundance and ripple love outward.

The Promise of Divine Presence: Awakening to the New Covenant

The prophet Jeremiah stood at the breaking point of a nation. Israel and Judah were in exile, a consequence of continually breaking the covenant God had established through Moses. That covenant—etched onto stone tablets—was a good and perfect law, yet it remained external. As a result, it was a law you could fail to keep, leading to cycles of obedience, failure, and punishment. The law was out there; the problem was always in here.

However, Jeremiah offers a vision of divine reset, a New Covenant that is unlike the old. God says: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant… I will put my law within you, and I will write it on your heart; and I will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

authentic,authentic living,bold,boldness over fear,choosing faith over fear,Divine Law,divine presence,divine wisdom,embodying faith,fear,freedom,fruit of the Spirit,generative wisdom,heart-centered living,Holy Spirit,humility,inner transformation,Integrity,living authentically,Love Your Neighbor,new covenant,spiritual freedom,

This promise is the ultimate invitation into Divine Presence. It’s not about geography or temple rituals; it’s about intimacy. God moves the legal center of the universe—His governing Divine Law—from a scroll locked away in an ark to the deepest core of your being. Consequently, this is the difference between obeying a rulebook out of fear and aligning your very desires with God’s will out of love.

The shift means that knowing God is no longer a privilege of the few—a priest or prophet—but an intuitive reality for you: “for you shall all know me, from the least of you to the greatest” (v. 34).

Moreover, the New Covenant is God’s revolutionary act of grace, promising not only an inscribed heart but also full forgiveness: “I will forgive your iniquity, and remember your sin no more.” This foundational grace is what makes true inner transformation possible.

You are freed from the paralysis of generational blame (“The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” v. 29) to take ownership of a life now written and defined by God’s love and presence.

From Exile to Inner Transformation: Your Blueprint for Spiritual Freedom

This shift from the external law to the heart-inscription is God’s blueprint for spiritual freedom. While the old law was a schoolmaster, pointing out our failure, the Divine Law written on your heart through the New Covenant is an embodying faith, empowering you to succeed.

Imagine a sophisticated navigation app: the old law gave you a paper map that was always getting lost or ignored. By contrast, the Divine Law is the GPS installed directly in your consciousness. It updates in real-time. Therefore, it doesn’t just tell you when you made a wrong turn; it guides your step before you even take it.

The result is spiritual freedom—not the freedom from all rules, but the freedom to live fully into the loving intent of the Law. Ultimately, it transforms rigid obedience into flowing, authentic living. This inward law, powered by Divine Presence, becomes the core operating system of your life, harmonizing the chaotic signals from your mind, heart, and gut into a single, coherent response. It turns following God from a stressful performance into a peaceful, heart-centered living that is guaranteed by grace.

The Holy Spirit within: The Power to Live an Embodied Faith

The profound promise of the Divine Law being inscribed on the heart immediately raises a critical question: How is this massive inner transformation achieved? The simple, divine answer is the presence of the Holy Spirit within.

The New Testament makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is the active agent who writes the Law of God onto the new heart (Romans 8:4-6; 2 Corinthians 3:3, 6). If the new covenant is the blueprint, the Holy Spirit is the master architect and builder, shifting your core from a self-serving mechanism to one capable of embodying faith—a practical, daily living-out of God’s presence.

Furthermore, this embodiment isn’t just a mental assent; it is fully integrated. Paul reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit within (1 Corinthians 6:19), implying that your very physical design is meant to facilitate a life of Divine Presence.

This truth—that God empowers transformation through your embodied experience—is powerfully illuminated by the modern framework of coherence, drawn from multiple Brain Integration Techniques (mBraining). This model posits that you possess three distinct intelligence centers, often called the “three brains”:

  • Head (Cerebral Cortex): The center for Cognitive intelligence (analysis, foresight, strategy).
  • Heart (Intrinsic Cardiac Nervous System): The center for Emotional/Relational intelligence (values, compassion, connection).
  • Gut (Enteric Nervous System): The center for Instinctual/Mobilizational intelligence (core identity, self-preservation, drive).

Therefore, the constant chaos in your life often stems from these three centers “voting” against each other: a head-led plan ignores the heart’s empathy, or a gut-led reaction overrides the head’s wisdom. Ultimately, the Spirit-led life, the life of authentic living, is one where the inscribed Divine Law leads these three centers into coherence.

authentic,authentic living,bold,boldness over fear,choosing faith over fear,Divine Law,divine presence,divine wisdom,embodying faith,fear,freedom,fruit of the Spirit,generative wisdom,heart-centered living,Holy Spirit,humility,inner transformation,Integrity,living authentically,Love Your Neighbor,new covenant,spiritual freedom,

The Holy Spirit within works within this triune system to align your thought, feeling, and drive. He ensures that your head meditates on truth (Psalm 119:97), your heart is anchored in love, and your gut is propelled by boldness Over fear (2 Timothy 1:7). The rest of our journey will explore this harmony, proving that the Law on the heart is not an abstract spiritual concept but God’s practical toolkit, enabling a robust, heart-centered living for every corner of your world.

Heart-Centered Living in Action: Coherent Decisions Across Your World

Heart-centered living is not a passive, mystical state; it is a coherent state of being that produces effective action. It is the practical outworking of the Divine Law written on your heart, resulting in Generative Wisdom—the kind of wisdom that integrates foresight (Head), compassion (Heart), and conviction (Gut) to actively create positive outcomes.

When your three intelligence centers—the logical head, the relational heart, and the instinctual gut—are aligned by the Holy Spirit within, your decisions cease to be fragmented. This immediate benefit means you move from the paralysis of confusion to the flow of authentic living. This coherence yields Generative Wisdom—a dynamic process where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, allowing you to sow abundance where scarcity once reigned.

The promise of Jeremiah is that this alignment, this inner transformation, is available to you wherever you are. Therefore, your calling is to allow that inscribed law to inform your daily rounds.

Let’s look at how this coherence manifests across various aspects of your life, transforming mundane activities into acts of embodying faith.

Divine Wisdom at Home: The Heart-Led Anchor with Proverbs 31 Depth

The home is often the most chaotic and exhausting arena of life, where exhaustion battles the pull to connect, and gut reactions frequently outpace reasoned responses. Whether you are the one holding the home front—mapping school runs amid work calls, or stirring pots while prayers simmer for a wayward child—the heart-law speaks straight to you: “I will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Jer. 33:33). Ultimately, this covenant love fuels your ache to nurture without the accompanying resentment.

Here’s how to apply Divine Wisdom as a Heart-Led Anchor in your family life:

  • Heart (Compassion & Values): Your heart is your default setting, prioritizing relationships and connection over efficiency. The heart-led decision is to pause, breathe, and remember the deepest value: Love Your Neighbor (starting with those under your roof).
  • Head (Foresight & Planning): Divine Wisdom incorporates the head, sharpened by meditating on the law (Psalm 119:97). Consequently, this allows you to anticipate the meltdowns or budget squeezes ahead. Your head charts the strategy for a resilient family—setting boundaries and scheduling the essential family huddle that prevents resentment from building.
  • Gut (Mobilization & Conviction): The gut provides the steady, mobilized drive needed for consistent, patient action. This means your gut’s boldness over fear ensures that love lands effectively, backed by persistent action, enforcing necessary boundaries or gently addressing old family fractures.

The Coherent Outcome: Without your head, your love is scattered. Without your gut, fear-frozen inaction stalls progress. Therefore, with the Divine Law cohering the three, your embodying faith turns home management into a quiet, effective ministry where generations are rooted and the covenant is made real.

Generative Wisdom in the Marketplace: Embodying Faith with Integrity

From the cubicle to the construction site, the marketplace demands that your embodying faith translate into practical justice, equity, and ethical conduct. Whether you’re coordinating teams or bidding on jobs, the heart-law redirects your focus from the grind to grace, requiring Generative Wisdom tempered by boldness over fear to maintain Integrity.

  • Heart (Compassion & Values): The heart-led professional views your colleagues and crew as kin, not resources. Fuelled by Jeremiah’s promise of full forgiveness, your heart means feedback becomes fuel for growth, and compassionate curiosity replaces managerial distance. In business, this insists on honoring your crew with fair wages, echoing Love Your Neighbor, not just the bottom line.
  • Head (Foresight & Planning): A wise head is required to be sustainably compassionate. Dipping into Psalm 119’s meditation, your mind plans with equity in view. You audit workloads for fairness, anticipate supply chain snags, or forecast material hikes—refusing to let short-term pressure compromise quality or ethical standards. In short, you design systems that embody justice and long-term viability.
  • Gut (Mobilization & Conviction): This is where boldness over fear is crucial. The gut ensures follow-through: it stalls the snappy, frustrated email and instead propels a quick, honest huddle to resolve a conflict. Similarly, in leadership, it drives you to take a stand—renegotiating subcontracts for sustainable timelines, or refusing a client whose unethical demands compromise your values, carrying out your ministry fully (Timothy 4:5).

The Coherent Outcome: When your mind, heart, and gut align, your business or administration achieves efficacy with dignity. Integrity transforms transactions into relationships. Jobs finish strong, teams become tighter, and your professional conduct becomes a witness to the abundance sown by the Divine Presence.

Generative Wisdom in Learning: Motivated Steps Toward Authentic Living

If you are navigating lectures, late buses, and the tension between group projects and personal setbacks, Generative Wisdom provides a profound advantage. The internal inscription of God’s law turns learning from a solo scramble into a community endeavor, propelling you toward authentic living.

  • Heart (Compassion & Values): Gut motivation may surge for the cram session, but Jeremiah’s promise of belonging tempers it. The heart-law draws you to notice and include the quiet one at the table (“they shall all know me,” v. 34). Therefore, your heart drives you to seek connections that build up, prioritizing mentorship and genuine relationship over transactional networking.
  • Head (Foresight & Planning): The head is essential for blocking pitfalls. Drawing on the Psalm’s wisdom, your mind plots out study bursts around necessary rest, blocking the overreach of burnout (119:101’s evil-avoidance). Crucially, it defines your why—connecting a challenging project to your larger purpose, ensuring your path is directed by truth, not just trends.
  • Gut (Mobilization & Conviction): The gut propels the bold asks and the persistent effort. It provides the energy to face an intimidating course or to try a new field. In turn, it fuels the natural overflow of tutoring a peer or speaking up for a marginalized view (Timothy 4:2’s persistent encouragement).

The Coherent Outcome: Effective learning is whole-person learning. Your authentic living ensures that your grades climb, your bonds build, and your faith slips in sideways, making your educational experience a testament to the integrated life.

fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, heart-centered living

The Fruit of Heart-Centered Living: Outcomes of Divine Law Embodied

The ultimate test of the heart-centered living you’ve explored isn’t how well you can define your three centers, but the fruit that your decisions bear. The Divine Law written on your heart is not an end in itself; it is the seed that produces a life that is both joyful and effective. This is the key difference between a life of rigid, external rule-keeping and a life of overflowing authentic living.

The psalmist’s exuberant declaration, “Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is always with me” (Psalm 119:97–98), illustrates this outcome. The law ceases to be bitter medicine and becomes sweeter than honey to the mouth (v. 103), stirring a deep aversion to falsehood (“I hate every false way,” v. 104). This inward delight is what generates the courage and endurance that Paul urges upon Timothy.

When your Head, Heart, and Gut are synchronized by the Holy Spirit within, the inner transformation yields the kind of abundant life Jesus promised. This life is marked by the concrete, observable characteristics known as the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Humility as the Posture: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Decisions

To cultivate this fruit, you must begin with a posture of humility. Humility is the essential condition for coherence because it acknowledges that none of your three intelligence centers is infallible on its own.

The Pitfall of the Head: When your head operates in isolation, it becomes impetuous—prideful in its logic, refusing to acknowledge emotional data or spiritual direction. Consequently, your decisions are rigid, lacking the gentle texture of patience and kindness. Humility forces your head to consult the Divine Presence in your heart before analyzing the spreadsheet.

The Pitfall of the Heart: Your heart operating alone becomes overly idealistic or impetuous, sacrificing long-term peace for immediate emotional gratification. Without a doubt, without the stabilizing force of your head’s foresight and your gut’s anchor in core self-control, it produces fleeting joy, not enduring Spiritual Freedom.

The Pitfall of the Gut: The raw, unaligned gut is often ruthless—focused only on survival or selfish gain. It mobilizes action without love or justice. However, Humility allows your gut’s power to be guided by the love and gentleness of the Spirit, ensuring that your boldness over fear is always tempered by self-control.

Humility thus acts as the connective tissue that aligns your centers, allowing the full Fruit of the Spirit to ripen. It turns the powerful energy of your gut into faithfulness, the analysis of your head into Generative Wisdom, and the emotion of your heart into love, ensuring that every decision is a harmonious reflection of the law inscribed within.

Integrity in Motion: Boldness Over Fear for Enduring Witness

The coherent, heart-led life doesn’t stop at inner harmony; it translates into integrity in motion, creating an enduring witness in a world plagued by cynicism. This integrity requires boldness over fear—the spiritual courage to act fully and truthfully, as urged by Paul to Timothy: “Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable… do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully” (2 Timothy 4:2, 5).

In 2025, this witness is desperately needed in public life. When you embody the Divine Law, you are honest about your supply chain, you advocate for fair policies, and you ask hard questions about Ethical AI and data justice. In essence, this is the courage of the integrated soul, where your Gut’s conviction is softened by your Heart’s compassion and informed by your Head’s Generative Wisdom.

This Integrity rebuilds community. It enables you to resist the temptation to succumb to “itching ears”—the distractions and myths Paul warned about—and instead, stand firm on the truth inscribed within. The result is an effective faith that makes the New Covenant visible: not through sermons alone, but through relationships and transactions marked by trustworthiness and boldness over fear.

Love Your Neighbor: The Outward Ripple of Spiritual Freedom

The ultimate outward ripple of heart-centered living is the realization of the greatest commandment: Love Your Neighbor. When the law is written on your heart, you experience spiritual freedom from the bondage of selfishness, enabling you to pour into the lives of others.
The grace received through the New Covenant is contagious. Jeremiah promised not just personal restoration, but the sowing of new life in the community (Jeremiah 31:27). Consequently, your coherent decisions become the seeds of this abundance, challenging the scarcity mindset of the world.

  • When you plan with equity, you sow kindness.
  • When you choose compassion over profit, you sow peace.
  • When you invite the lonely one in, you sow joy.

This Spiritual Freedom is your call to action: The path to authentic living is paved with small, coherent decisions made under the Divine Presence.

Your Invitation: Choose just one area this week—a crew conversation, a family crisis, a tough deadline—and apply the principles of the heart-centered way. Let the inscribed law be your guide, turning an old struggle into a new demonstration of Divine Presence.

Stepping into Authentic Living: Your Invitation to the Heart-Centered Way

The Heart-Centered Way is more than a spiritual concept; it is an active invitation to live the life God has already inscribed within you. The power of Jeremiah’s prophecy, the joy of the Psalmist’s meditation, and the urgency of Timothy’s charge all converge on one point: your authentic living is God’s desired outcome.

You are no longer bound by external rules or fragmented decisions. Instead, you are empowered by the Divine Law written on your heart, equipped with spiritual freedom, and ready to step fully into your calling. The journey begins with the simple, humble choice to let the Holy Spirit within align your mind, heart, and gut.

This week, answer the invitation. Choose one area of chaos or conflict in your life—at home, at work, or in your studies—and commit to making a coherent decision. Let the inscribed law be your guide, turning an old struggle into a new demonstration of Divine Presence.

A Prayer for Inner Transformation: Aligning with Divine Presence

The heart-centered life is one of constant renewal. Use this simple prayer to anchor your intention and invite the inner transformation promised by the New Covenant:

Covenant God, my mind is noisy, my heart is restless, and my drive is often selfish. I receive the Divine Law You have written on my heart. I ask the Holy Spirit within to align my head, heart, and gut, establishing Your Divine Presence as my anchor.

Let my thoughts be sharpened by Your truth, my feelings be fueled by Your love, and my actions be propelled by Your Boldness Over Fear.

I claim the Psalmist’s resolve: “I hate every false way.” Equip me to live with Integrity and Humility, so that my every decision may bear the Fruit of the Spirit and be an act of Love Your Neighbor.

Align me now, O Lord, to live the Heart-Centered Way for Authentic Living. Amen.

Learning from humble fishermen…

Peter, Peter, …

Lectionary Readings:

  • Acts 5:27-32

Childhood memories, especially childhood memories from beach-houses and idyllic holidays, are usually the best moments etched in our minds. Well, not all of them…

Our school year was the US one, not the Panamanian one – at odds with all my friends.   One of the benefits, was that whenever we’d spend our holiday at the beach, we’d have the beach completely to ourselves.  Us and the fishermen.

Our beach was fabulous, except for the occasional jellyfish  It was very unusual for us to get them still alive, but their dead bodies wash up on the shore regularly.  A little scientific research, and I found the following:

even detached tentacles from the jellyfish itself can still sting and cause you pain, irritation, allergic reaction etc. It’s important to understand that the nematocysts (stinging structures found in the tentacles) can remain very active long after the jellyfish is dead, as long as two weeks.[1]

I didn’t get a live one – I got a tentacle wound around a leg.  Initially it was just pain in my calf, then on the thigh where it had stung some more, then the realisation that the leg was going numb… By this stage, my beach holiday was miserable… The pain and the fear.

What do you do? Grab your child, stick them in the car, and run off to the ER – about a 20 to 30 minute drive away.  One problem: Mum & Dad didn’t HAVE a car.  We’d been dropped off at the beach, and were to be picked up at the end of the holiday.  No cell-phone.  No phone lines. No electricity. No taxis… Just us, the beach, and a few fishermen.

So off to the fisherman’s house we go!  He was home.  He had them sit me on a stool in his dining room, and then rubbed my leg down with some oil that he had sitting in a bottle on the shelf.   Apparently, though, that wasn’t enough – the poison had been in my leg for too long already and he was worried it was going to my heart.  So he pours a glass of this oil, for me to drink.  Cod Liver Oil. All of it.  Down.  Now.

Please God, NEVER AGAIN.

One day of rest, and it’s all back to normal!

Today, I’d like to talk to you about a Fisherman you’ve probably heard about a lot:  Peter.

We find him today before the Sanhedrin, questioned by the high priest:

28 We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” … “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.

29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! 30 The God [that…] raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. 31 … that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

The Peter that Jesus asked to follow him, this isn’t the same Peter we find standing before the Sanhedrin.

I can only imagine that Peter grew up in a home quite like that of the fisherman I visited.  No school. No cool electronics and gadgets. Nets mended and repaired over and over again.

And then Jesus shows up.  Peter had a choice. He left the world’s security behind him and chose to walk with Christ. … it’s a walk of faith. He left that boat, the net, the bankroll of fish and began a new fishing enterprise:   Peter and Co. Fishers of Men. “we catch ’em, God cleans ’em”

The Peter we know from the Bible was brash, bold, opinionated, emotional, volatile, quick to talk, and he made a ton of mistakes. We love him because there’s a lot of Peter in each of us. We know this Peter: he’s proud – so proud that he couldn’t possibly let Jesus wash his feet, he tells everyone what to do, he speaks and acts before he thinks, he chopped off the, and he even walked on water for a moment in true faith.   But inside, a fearful man.

And yet, Peter was to be the Rock on which the church was to be built.

We may envy the closeness he had with God: That special relationship with God; that constant communication with Him.  Like many of the other “heros” we find in the Bible:  I envy what they could accomplish for God. It was amazing how God can take these weak and imperfect individuals and do such amazing things through them that they could so greatly impact people. Unswerving faith. They trusted God when it didn’t make sense, when it wasn’t popular and when things were not going their way. They are legends that we are talking about thousands of years later because of the kind of faith that they had: “That’s the type of person that I want to be” or “that is the type of faith that I would like to have.”

Peter, this is the man:

  • When Jesus was on the mountain and was transfigured with Moses and Elijah it was Peter who wanted to stay and build shelters for all three of them.
  • When Jesus asks: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”, and then followed by the questions: “But what about you, Who do you say I am?” Peter is the only one to respond: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
  • When Jesus told Peter he was going to be killed it was Peter who said he would die with him. It was Peter who assured Jesus that even if everyone else denied him he wouldn’t.
  • It was Peter who drew his sword and cut off Malchus’ ear as the soldiers came to arrest Jesus.

Peter’s greatest desire was to be with Jesus – we see this when he walks on water:

  • The disciples are out to sea and there is a great storm around them. These experienced fishermen, they were afraid. Jesus walks out on the water towards them. Peter speaks up and says, “Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.” Peter wanted to get to Jesus. And yet, even when Peter stepped out of the boat, and he became afraid because of the wind, taking his eyes off of Jesus and sinking. He cried out some of the most amazing words in the entire Bible: “Lord, save me”. Three simple words so packed with meaning.

When Jesus asks if the disciples will turn their backs on him, it’s Peter that responds:   “to whom shall we go, you alone have the words of eternal life, we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Then we see Peter, at the height of Jesus’ popularity and triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  Celebrating and happy that HE is on the side of the Messiah.

I can just imagine him:  “Yeah, I’m one of his disciples.  You know, I’ve known him probably the longest out of all of us.  And I’ve got an inside track with him, ‘cos I’m important, you know.  I was picked to be one of the elite, of this special force that’s with him.”  Chest puffed out.

And so, imagine Peter’s complete confusion when Jesus, somehow, before his eyes, changes.  Jesus starts to talk about death.  And how salvation isn’t going to be war or rebellion.  There’s not going to be any glory in battle.   He’s going to go to the cross.

The same Peter that sworn that he would never turn his back on Jesus and that he would follow him to the death – suddenly he doesn’t recognise Jesus any more.  This isn’t what I signed up for – we’ve supposed to triumph – we’ll be famous.  What on EARTH are you talking about?   How is your death supposed to help our cause?

And so we find Peter, doing exactly as Jesus told him that he would: denying him three times. After Jesus was handed over to the Pharisees and the Romans, Peter stuck around to watch. Three times he was recognized as one of Jesus’ disciples, and three times Peter denied it, even cursing the name of Jesus.

And then Jesus looked into his eyes.  I can’t imagine the pain of the moment: because I’m sure that in Christ’s look there was no accusation.  Not even pity.  It would have been a look of love “it’s okay, I understand, and I forgive you”.  Not I told you so.

All his bravado and declarations, gone.  On the most important night of his life—on the most important night in history—Peter, “the Rock,” sat alone in a dark corner weeping. This wasn’t common place for him. He was a strong self-reliant fisherman. He was bold! He was courageous! And now, he was completely undone. The Rock had been shattered.

And it’s only upon that shattered Rock that Jesus can build the church.  Peter needed to stop trusting in the physical, in his strength, in his motivation, in his way of seeing the world, and accept that there was another way.  Peter had human courage, but he lacked spiritual courage.  He was brave, but only as far as he had control of the situation.

Every single day we make choices that show whether we are courageous or cowardly. We choose between the right thing and the convenient thing, sticking to a conviction or caving in for the sake of comfort, greed or approval. We choose to believe in God and trust him, even when we do not always understand his ways, or to second-guess him and try to do it on human strength.

When we’ve been broken and then revived by the Holy Spirit, we will follow in spite of the masses; we’ll be faithful in spite of public opinion; powerful in spite of the lukewarm standards.

That’s the Peter we find standing before the Sanhedrin.  The one that has been purified by the fire of trials and knows what he really looks like on the inside – has thrown “himself” away and allowed himself to be filled by the Holy Spirit.

Most of us are like the Buddhist scholar that comes to see the Zen Master.  An expert: we talk about our extensive doctrinal backgrounds and how much we’ve studied and learned.  And the master listens patiently and makes tea. When it’s ready, he pours it into the scholar’s cup, until it’s overflowing and runs over the floor. 

The scholar jumps up, crying “Stop, stop! The cup is full: you can’t get any more in.” 

And the master replied: “You are like this cup: you are full of your own ideas of the way.  You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is already full.  I can’t put anything in it. Before I can teach you, you have to empty your cup.” 

If we want to be filled with the Spirit of God, and let like Peter, we need to allow Jesus to shatter the rock of our own illusions of grandeur.