| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 11 |
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In a gallery in Europe there hand, side by side, Rembrandt’s first picture, a simple sketch, imperfect and faulty, and his great masterpiece, which all men admire. So, in the two names, Simon and Peter, we have two pictures – first, the rude fisherman who came to Jesus that day, the man as he was before Jesus touched his life and began his work on him; and, second, the man as he became during the years when the friendship of Jesus had warmed his heart and enriched his life; when the teaching of Jesus had given him wisdom and started holy aspirations in his soul; and when the experiences of struggle and failure, of penitence and forgiveness, of sorrow and joy, had wrought their transformations in him.
When Jesus said, “Thou shalt be called Cephas,” he did not mean that this transformation of Simon would take place instantaneously. The fisherman did not at once become the Rock-man. This was the man into whom he would grow along the years under Christ’s tuition and training. This was what his character would be when the work of grace in him should be finished. The new name was a prophecy of the man that was to be, the man Jesus would make of him. Now he was only Simon, rash, impulsive, self confident, vain, and therefore weak and unstable. “Thou shalt be Peter – a stone.” That very moment the struggle began in Peter’s soul. He had a glimpse of what the Master meant in the new name he gave him, and began to strive toward it.
“When the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something. God stoops o’er his head,
Satan looks up between his feet–both tug–
He’s left, himself, i’ the middle: the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!
Never leave growing till the life to come!”
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