He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” ~Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
Sometimes our ideas of how things should go do not line up with God’s ideas about how things should go. When that happens, we find ourselves “crossways” with the will of God and we might need to be corrected. We might need to be given a different perspective and that can take a minute to sink in. Peter was part of Jesus’s inner circle so to speak. He got the opportunity to witness some things that some of the other disciples didn’t. That might have given him a little too much courage. A little too much gumption to speak up when He didn’t believe that the mission that God Himself had ordained was on the right track according to Peter. But it was Peter who had gotten off track. It was Peter who lost sight of the difference between his part of the mission and Jesus’s part of the mission. Some would say that where Peter was speaking from when he chose to rebuke Jesus was a lofty place to stand, but in all truth, we find ourselves speaking from the very same place every day. When things don’t go the way that we think they should we tend to want to become the driver of our own life. We pray for Jesus to take the wheel but when the road gets bumpy, we want to take the wheel right back and find a road that is a little smoother with less potential for what we would deem a hazardous experience. Immediately following Jesus’s correction of Peter’s rebuking Him, Jesus tells the disciples and the crowd “If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways.” ~Mark 8:34 (TPT) Jesus had just told everybody standing there that not only was He going to suffer a great injustice, with beatings and mocking’s and sham of trial that would send Him to a cross to be crucified and then he would rise again in three days….and then He told them all that they better be ready to take up their cross and do the same! If you have studied much on what the Jews were expecting in a Messiah, you know that Jesus only footed about half the bill. The miracles and healings were awesome, but the suffering and injustice was not what they had expected. They were looking for a king and warrior that was not coming to take part and submit to what the Romans were doing to God’s people, they were looking for someone who was going to defy them and win!
We all are bombarded with “human concerns” every day. Concerns for ourselves and concerns for those that we love. We don’t want to find ourselves in what we would consider a bad situation and most of us don’t wake up every day praying to God about the cross we are supposed to carry, but we need to. When was the last time you asked God to help you surrender to His ways verses asking Him to do things your way? Have you ever gotten “offended” with God? Have you become annoyed or resentful about the bumpy road you are traveling down? Then stop looking at the potential hazards on the horizon. That’s the problem! Peter was so focused on the crucifixion that he missed the resurrection! Somewhere in the discourse Peter lost focus and went down the proverbial rabbit hole. We all do it and we should all pray for God to help us remain faithful and focused to His plan. Even if His plan seems like the last thing we want to do and the last place we want to go, we have to trust in God’s goodness and love for us and that He Himself is taking responsibility of our outcomes. When the enemy starts showing you pictures of a bleak outcome, start talking to him about the resurrection of Jesus Christ! He has been disarmed! We have been made overcomers in Christ. If we cannot praise God on both sides of our “Red Sea”, if we cannot praise and thank God before he parts it and moves us through our troubles on dry ground and then again after we get to the other side, then we aren’t operating in faith. Faith must be from beginning to end because faith is the very substance of what we desire and what God desires for us. Trust God today no matter what road you are traveling and talk back to those nagging “human concerns”. Don’t lose focus in the troubles. The cross is your sign that everything is going to be okay so take yours up and surrender to God’s way of doing things today.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” ~1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)
Have you ever gotten “offended” with God? Have you become annoyed or resentful about the bumpy road you are traveling down?
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