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On our recent trip to Israel, we had an opportunity to spend an evening next to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We gathered around a bonfire, worshiping our Lord with fellow believers. A gentle breeze blowing off the waves.
It’s times like that that make you think about all that God has done in your life. It was truly a beautiful, holy moment. It makes you thankful for God’s grace in giving us what we do not deserve.
One of the ways that God’s grace has been revealed in my life is the grace to start over. I’m so thankful that God never gave up on me. When I faltered and when I failed, God’s grace was extended to start over.
One of the most beautiful stories of God’s grace to start over was Jesus restoring Simon Peter after he failed miserably. We can all relate to failure; the question is, how do you recover from it?
Once a person has failed the enemy has a powerful weapon, and that weapon is shame. But the beauty and the power of the story is that God takes away the shame and restores Peter in His great love and renews the purpose and calling on his life.
The story begins shortly after the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection changes everything. It changed the meaning of the cross. Before the resurrection, it represented death and struck fear in the hearts of any who looked upon a cross. But after the resurrection, it became a symbol of hope and a reminder of how much God loves. It has become a thing of beauty that represents hope. That’s why we place crosses on graves.
The resurrection changed death itself. Before, the grave was the final chapter, the end of all hope, the final curtain. But because of the resurrection, death no longer is master over us, it has been conquered, it has been defeated. Our last breath is not the end; that is when life truly begins.
The resurrection gave us an eternal perspective. Before, all we could hope for was here on earth; our purpose, the meaning of life, it was all centered here, on the material, on things which are earthly. Now, because of the resurrection, all those things seem so unimportant when compared to the eternal weight of glory. We have been set free.
I read the story of a man who was radically changed because he understood how much God loved him when the Lamb of God died on the cross. When he was a young boy, a neighbor gave him a baby lamb. It became his constant companion and best friend. One day he came home to find his father in a drunken rage, fixing a flat tire. Out of curiosity, the boy’s pet lamb had wandered over, but the father, in a drunken rage, struck the lamb with a tire iron, and killed it.
Hatred filled the boy’s heart. He was never the same. He hated everyone and everything, including himself. Many years later, a friend invited him to church. The pastor was speaking about a Lamb; the Lamb of God who died on the cross, willingly giving his life because of love.
For the first time in his life, he understood love. The Lamb of God died so he could receive love; the Father’s love he had never known. It changed him; he could feel the hatred leaving his heart as he gave his heart to this love.
When you look at this chapter in the book of John, it’s about starting over; it’s about the new life that God has in store for us. It’s about faith, hope, and love.


Pastor Rich Jones
Pastor Matthew Dodd
Pastor Jean Marais
Rich Jones Calvary Chapel
Calvary Chapel Worship Center
Calvary Chapel Hillsboro
Calvary Chapel Oregon
Calvary Chapel Beaverton
Calvary Chapel Portland

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