Today’s Devotion
Topic: The Concerns Of God! (Part 1)
Text: Mark 8: 38
38 If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Amen
Long before the cross, Jesus had begun teaching His disciples 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.”
Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:31-38)
Wow! Beloved, this passage so packed than a simply devotion can make justice to. Let us attempt to produce out of it, what may represent a summary of what Jesus meant by the concerns of God; probably why it is so, and possibly deduce from it some reasons why Peter got it wrong.
The Concerns Of God:
1. It was on God’s priority list that the Son of Man suffers many things and be rejected by the elders. He also had to die and resurrect on the third day.
Reason: JESUS HAD TO SUFFER THESE MANY THINGS SO AS TO PASS THE TEST AS OUR HIGH PRIEST who is able to empathize with our weaknesses, because He (Himself) had been tempted in every way, just as we are– yet did not sin. (Heb 4:15).
He also had to die because, “under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Heb 9: 22). Again, “Christ (had to) purchased us with His blood and made us free from the Law. In that way, the Law could not punish us. He had to do this by carrying the load and by being punished instead of us. It is written, “Anyone who hangs on a cross is hated and punished.” Because of the price Christ Jesus paid, the good things that came to Abraham might come to the people who are not Jews. And by putting our trust in Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit He has promised. (Gal 3: 13- 15).
Why Peter got it wrong: Peter at the time had allowed the devil to possess him so as to obstruct Jesus’ determination to go to the cross, knowing that that singular act will bring the greatest redemption to mankind and free us from the bondage of sin. Satan did this by filling Peter with human or ‘fleshly’ concerns which already by its nature, opposes the things of God.
Meditate a lot on this beloved, and pray for more understanding by the Holy Spirit. Thank God for thinking about you and working out a redemption strategy for you long before you even knew you needed a Saviour. Bless Jesus for wholeheartedly stepping in and suffering in your place, even to the point of death, so that you might live again. Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to help you not to take the message of the cross for granted.
Tomorrow we will look at the next concern of God captured in the passage above and see how we can appropriate that in our lives. Make a date!
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