“But behold, the hand of the one betraying Me is with Mine on the table. For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” And they began to discuss among themselves which one of them it might be who was going to do this thing. Luke 23:21-23

I think it’s healthy to consider myself capable of doing any kind of evil, that I might not become overconfident and smug. It’s a good sign to wonder if the “traitor in our midst” just might be me and I missed something I did or said. Here’s the principle that should always be policing our minds,

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Psalm 139:23-24

Peter was certainly not thinking along those lines (Luke 23:33) and found such a possibility—that he might be disloyal to Jesus—preposterous. What happened to him, not so much what Judas did, is a clear and present danger for all of us. His story—that he denied Jesus three times—is there to remind us of our fragility without the help of the Holy Spirit. How desperately wicked we are and prone to wander!

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Robert Robinson

We must always conclude and be thankful that “there but for the grace of God go I,” for “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10

The Lord was capable of saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23), but in our own strength we can’t. In the case of Judas and Peter, Satan was personally at work, to contort the former’s thinking, and to drain the latter of his main asset, his courage. But in Peter’s case, the Lord foresaw his plight and had prayed for him, that he would be restored. Matthew 22:32

Our prayer is for the Lord to keep us from stumbling (Jude 24) and to keep us from the evil one (2 Thessalonians 3:3).

Thank God, like he did for his disciple Peter, Jesus has also prayed for us.

I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. John 17:15