We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk.
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Matthew 16:21-26 (NRSV)
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
Devotional
The above passage comes directly after Jesus’s commendation of Peter for his profound confession that Jesus was “the Messiah, the son of the living God” (Matt 16:16). While Peter’s declaration was correct, his words were fraught with misguided presumptions and expectations about what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus had different plans from that of Peter and the Jewish people of that day. Rather than coming in power and majesty, Jesus’s first coming would result in suffering and a cross. In other words, the “church” leaders of that day got it wrong!
Jesus’s rebuke of Peter could easily be directed at any one of us or at the Christian church as a whole—“you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” How often have we all done this? It is so easy to be motivated by outside factors such as reason, tradition, and experience. Each of these things can be (and often are) positive, but they can also become a stumbling block. Our experiences and traditions can greatly influence the way we reason and the way we read and interpret Scripture. Like Peter and the religious leaders, we can believe we have it all figured out, that we are the gatekeepers of “true” faith, theology, and holiness. Yet, every so often, a revelation from God (either directly or via the Body of Christ) sheds light on our still very worldly thinking and acting and reminds us that we are misguided or even selfish.
Are we prepared to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus, even if this means letting go of control? Are we willing to lose our lives as they currently are to find true life? We tend to think of these statements by Jesus as referring to “the big things,” the life altering choices that may actually cost us our lives. But often God is calling us to give up the smaller things—to let go of winning that argument; to let go of our preference for a particular worship style; to let go of the condemnation held toward the other; to let go of always needing to know the answer. The list goes on. What do you need to let go of today in order to let God be God in your life?
Prayer
Gracious God, we recognize and confess that we are so often focused on worldly things and not on the things of God. Open our eyes to see the unhealthy and ungodly presumptions, expectations, thinking, and doing that are in our lives and in our churches. Lord forgive us and help us to move forward trusting in you. Amen.
Rev Dr Rob A. Fringer (Principal of NTC)