Peter, The Apostle

Peter grew in faith within those three years of personally knowing Jesus but still had some human issues. Peter’s penchant for aggressive behavior and questioning everything exposes some of the major human frailties when it comes to fully understanding the spiritual. Jesus returned and in His ascension appoints the breath of God to enter in His stead and the Disciples (now Apostles) received the Holy Spirit, their lives completely changed. Peter was a more compassionate person, still maintaining some aggression as needed but a very compassionate man who was a warrior for Christ.
So what other lessons can we learn from Peter’s life?
Peter’s mouth and mind sometimes did not work together as we discovered last week when Jesus exclaimed that Satan had stepped in to his speech. Once again in the Upper Room (according to Luke and John) or on the Mount of Olives (Matthew and Mark) Peter took lead in an argument after the washing of feet over who is the greatest Disciple. This lesson is two-fold.
The first thing we need to look at here is that “No one Christian is greater than another”.
We are all part of the Body of Christ and even though this was a dispute basically of who would take the lead, it must be noted that Jesus was saying that they all had an equal share in the Kingdom.  Though we have persons with the calling to be leaders in the church, we are all still equally human and thus equally bound to Christ. Yes the judgement will be a little harsher dependent on spiritual gifts and how they were used but we are still equally human. 
Peter in his infinite wisdom said that he specifically would follow Jesus to prison and even unto death (Luke 22:33) however Jesus knew that the human side of Peter would fear it because he truly was not ready.     
Lesson Two: When you say you will commit, be truthfully committed.
Lack of Commitment denies our faith. Human frailty shows our fears of rejection from others and death for our faith. We need to be fully committed to suffer persecution for our beliefs.
When we take responsibilities in the mission of the church we must fully commit our heart soul and mind to those commitments. Yes sometimes our worldly responsibilities or mental states (exhaustion) get in the way but we must remain committed to the cause of Christ.
Jesus did forgive Peter for his denial and empowered him because of his faith and leadership after Jesus had died. Peter cared more for the safety of the believers and his children than for his own. This leads to our next lesson.
Lesson Three: Keep the Word/Truth/Jesus in your heart and He will protect you.
How often did Peter suffer for the faith? He was beaten, jailed, whipped, and eventually martyred for his firm belief in Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus always looked after Peter and though he suffered, he maintained the desire to serve and spread the Word.
When he dealt with Paul, he finally understood that Jesus wanted all people saved and not just the Jew. . When asked to be the head of the church Peter knew that all the Apostles were equal and no one was worthy to be leader over all Christians. Finally, when Peter was to be executed, tradition states that Peter wanted to be crucified upside down because he was unworthy of suffering as Jesus did. After he died he was venerated as the “first” Pope (Vicar) or substitute for Christ while in life he did not want that because as he understood there is no earthly substitute for God on earth.