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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
John 13:36-37—Thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow afterwards. (R.V.)
Heaven desired.—We often say it. When the pressure of life seems unbearable; when the door opens just wide enough to admit our dearest, and shuts before we can follow; when we want to see Him whom we love—we find ourselves using Peter’s words again: "Why not now?"
Heaven delayed.—"Thou canst not follow Me now." The emphasis is on the cannot. It is as though the Master said, "The hindrance is not in some arbitrary edict of Divine power, but in the infinite knowledge and wisdom that cannot err." Peter was not fit to go. There were lessons of the utmost importance waiting for him to acquire in the near future. He must learn to know himself, and Christ, and the grace of the Holy Spirit. When he proudly vaunted that he would lay down his life for Jesus, he gave incontestable evidence that he did not know himself; and there was every reason to think that he was similarly deceived when he supposed that he was fit to quit earth’s discipline, and enter on heaven’s blessed enjoyment. He must exchange his own strivings and resolvings for the gracious indwelling of the Spirit of Pentecost; he must learn the glorious energy of the indwelling Savior; he must be girded by another, and carried whither he would not; and only then would the time of his putting off of the tabernacle of the body arrive.
Heaven guaranteed.—"Thou shalt follow after wards." There could be no doubt about it, since Jesus had said it; and often, in after days, these words must have been as a cordial, "Thou shalt follow afterwards." But what the Master said to Peter He says to each who believes, Thou shalt follow Me afterwards, "unto fountains of waters of life."
