John 21: 20 – 22 20 Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved—the one who had leaned over to Jesus during supper and asked, “Lord, who will betray you?” 21 Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?”
22 Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”
After Jesus and His Apostles had breakfast on the beach, in John 21, Jesus provides Peter with His purpose in life based on Peter’s threefold commitment to his love for Jesus. Even with his promise to carry and advance Jesus ministry here on earth Peter still has the free will of human nature in him. Now that Peter knows what he is going to do he wants to also know what John will do in the future. We always like to compare our lot and place in life to others whether it be our path in life, our day to day obstacles and circumstances or just to see where we are in the scheme of things in compared to those we know. This type of comparison has 3 big challenges for us in life – 1) comparing our path to others will most likely either make us feel good or bad for the results in our life that is completely independent of our purpose. 2) Looking at someone else allows us to take our focus off our relationship with God and what His purpose really is for us. 3) It takes valuable time from our lives that we could be fulfilling our purpose and producing fruit for God according to that purpose here on earth. With our lives here being a “one way” ticket there is only one of any given minute, hour or day in our lives. No two can be the same and no two can ever be repeated so our faith should move us to follow Jesus without getting bogged in how we might measure our lives by the lives of others. Jesus answer to Peter here is a firm reminder for us that our days here are limited and each one is a gift granted by Him. If we are trying to busy ourselves with others business we should hear God in our conscience asking “ What is that to you?”. May that reminder keep us on track and faithful to our calling knowing that God has all things under His hand and we are to simply Follow Him ……………