Follow (Mathew 16 - P 41)

We finish our reading in Matthew 16 today.  Before you begin, look back at Matthew 16:17 - 18 to refresh your mind of the most recent event in Peter's life.  Then, read:

Matthew 16: 21 - 28

From Peter:

Could the words of Jesus to Peter in verses 17 - 18 and then in verses 23 - 24 be any more opposite?  Wow.  I can only imagine the confusion swimming in the mind of Peter.  What in the world?!  A couple of lessons for you and I from this:

1. We have never 'arrived' at all the spiritual insight and growth we need.  We must go further ... we must listen better ... we must delve deeper into God through Christ.  Don't get complacent!  Don't ever be satisfied with where you are spiritually.  Be content in your circumstances and hungry for more of God.  Know that there is deeper to grow ... deeper to understand ... deeper to experience the life of God through Christ in us.  Wherever you are ... go deeper.  
2. Watch our for spiritual arrogance.  Perhaps Peter's beautiful commendation from the Lord went straight to his head.  Perhaps he began to "think more highly of himself than he ought".  I don't doubt his response was born out of deep love and extreme devotion.  However, his response was arrogant. Telling Jesus what "must" not be!  Ever been guilty?  Ever been in the middle of a time of pain and suffering and told God that "this must not be"? 

From Jesus:

1. When we presume to tell God what must be and what must not be ... we have left the position of 'following' and assumed the position of 'leading'.  That's what Peter did ... and the Lord called him on it immediately.  Jesus told Peter to get behind him ... get back where you belong ... behind me ... following ... the place of discipleship.  Oh my friends we have a hard time staying "behind"!  Our strong wills, our independent natures, our issues with control, our desire for our own way ... all these lure us into stepping in front of the Lord and telling Him to follow us ... do what I want ... serve me.  Jesus would remind you and I of that as He reminded Peter ... you, disciple ... get behind.
2. When we have the things of the world in the forefront of our minds, we become pawns of Satan himself.   Even Peter became a pawn.  Remember Matthew 4 - the temptations of Jesus?  Those temptations were all about taking the way of power, the way of the world, to accomplish the things of God.  They were about compromising with the world - about reducing your standards to fit with the world's ways.  When Luke tells of those temptations he ends the encounter with "When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time." (Luke 4:13)  Here is the opportune time!  He's back with the same temptation ... avoid the painful way of the cross.  And the devastating form used this time was the temptation came through the voice of a dearly loved friend!  It helps us understand why Jesus' response was sharp and poignant.  After all, no one wants a cross.  Listen to the words of William Barclay:

What made the temptation more acute was the fact that it came from one who loved him.  Peter spoke as he did only because he loved Jesus so much that he could not bear to think of him treading that dreadful path and dying that awful death.  The hardest temptation of all is the one which comes from protecting love. There are times when fond love seeks to deflect us from the perils of the path of God; but the real love is not the love which holds people at home, but the love which sends them out to obey the commandments of moral courage and conviction which are given not to make life easy, but to make life great.

      3.  Want to be a follower of Jesus?  He tells you how through his words to these disciples.  Three things:

• deny yourself ... what does that mean?  It means you really are not the main character in the play of your life.  You really are not on center stage.  He is.  
• take up your cross ... what does that mean?  It means a life of sacrifice.  Reward and prestige from this world are not to matter to us.  Sacrifice and service.
• follow Him ... stay behind and walk where he walked.  

Years ago my husband and I were in Colorado in the dead of winter.  Snow was several feet deep.  He and I went out to take a snow shoe up a road that was not traveled in winter so the snow was deep and unplowed.  If you have never done that particular activity - it's hard!  The snow shoes kept me from sinking too deep into the snow ... but they did not protect me from sinking some.  And a great deal of effort was required for me to pick my legs up high enough to place my foot on the top of the snow again for the next step.  Exhausting!  I quickly learned that if I just tracked behind my husband, he had already 'packed' the snow a bit where he had stepped.  My hike became much easier when I stepped into his tracks.  And I thought ... this is it, isn't it, Lord?  I step in your steps ... I follow you ... and the way is much easier than if I try to launch my own path up the mountain.  

And Peter ... our same Peter who received this scathing rebuke from his Jesus ... learned the lesson.  He later wrote:

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you.  He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.  1 Peter 2: 20 - 21 (NLT)

So ... today ... let's follow!