Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional – Utmost for His Highest 2 March 2025 Topic: Have You Felt the Hurt of the Lord?

Have You Felt the Hurt of the Lord?

By Oswald Chambers

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, … you know that I love you.” — John 21:17

Have you ever felt the hurt of the Lord in the very center of your being—the place where your real sensitivity lies? The devil never hurts us there. Sin never hurts us there. Human emotion never hurts us there. Nothing gets through to this place but the word of God.

A third time Jesus asked if Peter loved him. Peter was hurt because he was waking up to an amazing fact: he did love Jesus, all the way through to the core of his being. Peter had begun to see what Jesus’s patient, repeated questioning meant. It meant that Peter no longer belonged to himself. It meant that, for Peter, there was no one in heaven above or on earth below except Jesus Christ. It meant that Peter could never delude himself again. It was a revelation to Peter to realize how much he truly did love the Lord, and with amazement he said, “You know that I love you.”

How skillful, patient, and direct was Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord’s questions always reveal us to ourselves, but he never asks until the right time. Peter did not know how much he loved Jesus until the patient, painful questions came. Probably once in each of our lives, the Lord backs us into a corner and hurts us with this probing question, until we realize that we do love him, far more deeply than any mere declaration can tell.

Numbers 26-27; Mark 8:1-21

Wisdom from Oswald

There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.

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