A Devotional as Review for the Sermon-"Transform: Do You Love Me?"
- mpenman31
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
There are moments in life when failure seems to do more than mark a bad decision. It begins to reshape how we see ourselves. What once felt like a mistake now feels like an identity. We do not merely say, “I did wrong.” We begin to wonder, “Am I still who God called me to be?” In that space, shame grows quietly. It sends us on detours. It nudges us back toward old habits, old fears, old versions of ourselves, and sometimes even old definitions of what we think our life can still become.
That is where Peter is when Jesus meets him.
Peter has denied Jesus. He has failed publicly, painfully, and repeatedly. And yet when the risen Christ comes to him, He does not begin with accusation. He begins with breakfast. He feeds Peter before He questions him. He cares for him before He corrects him. He reminds him that he still has a place at the table before reopening the wound that needs healing.
There is something deeply tender in that.
Jesus does not rush to expose Peter. He does not humiliate him. He does not demand a performance of remorse. Instead, after breakfast, He asks a question: “Do you love me?”
That question is not meant to crush Peter. It is meant to reopen the relationship.
Sometimes we imagine God speaking to us only to point out what is wrong. We brace ourselves for divine disappointment. We expect a courtroom. But Jesus gives Peter a conversation. He is not trying to prove Peter guilty. Peter already knows he failed. Jesus is trying to bring him back into truth, back into love, back into communion.
And that same question comes to us.
Not first, “Why did you fail?”
Not first, “How could you do that?”
Not first, “Can you explain yourself?”
But, “Do you love me?”
It is a question that reaches beneath behavior and into allegiance. Beneath the surface of activity and into the center of the heart. Jesus asks what still matters most. He asks whether, under the rubble of disappointment and fear, love for Him still lives.
The beautiful and difficult thing is that Jesus asks Peter three times. He takes him back through the place of rupture. Not to destroy him, but to heal him honestly. Real restoration is not denial. Jesus does not pretend Peter’s denial never happened. He brings Peter into a painful truth, but He stays with him there. Peter grieves, not simply because the question is repeated, but because he realizes Jesus sees everything clearly and still does not leave.
What grace.
To be fully known and not abandoned.
To be brought back to the scene of our failure and not cast away.
To discover that the Lord’s memory of our sin is real, but His mercy is greater still.
And then Jesus does something even more astonishing. He gives Peter a calling again: “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.”
Jesus does not merely forgive Peter. He entrusts him. He restores him not just to peace, but to purpose. Peter is not returned to Jesus so he can sit forever in guilt. He is restored so he can rise in service.
This is how Christ transforms us. He reopens the relationship. He reengages love. He reignites calling.
Maybe you have been living on a detour. Maybe something in your past still whispers that you are disqualified. Maybe you have gone back to what is familiar because forward felt too uncertain. Maybe you have wondered whether God still wants you after all that has happened.
Hear the good news: Jesus still meets people on the shoreline of their failure. He still prepares grace before He speaks truth. He still asks questions that restore. He still entrusts wounded people with holy work.
Your detour is not beyond His reach.
Your failure is not final.
Your love, however tremulous, can still be reclaimed.
And your calling, in Christ, can still burn again.
So sit with the question. Let it do its work. Not as condemnation, but as invitation.
Do you love Him?
And if your answer is halting, humble, bruised, or trembling, offer it anyway.
He already knows.
And still, He calls.
Reflection Questions
What failure, regret, or detour has most shaped the way you now see yourself, and how has it affected your sense of worth before God?
In what ways have you been expecting God to approach you like a judge in a courtroom instead of Jesus at a table offering bread, presence, and restoration?
If Jesus asked you today, “Do you love me more than these?”, what are the “these” in your life that compete with wholehearted allegiance to Him?
Where have you wanted healing without honesty, restoration without revisiting what broke you, or purpose without surrender?
What might it look like for you not only to receive Christ’s forgiveness, but also to accept that He may still be calling, entrusting, and sending you forward?
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