What Good?

Today’s Reading:  Matthew 16:13-28

Who do you say Jesus is?  Is he the Christ, the son of the living God to you?  If you only know this because someone told you who he is, then that is not enough.  Jesus told Peter that he knew that he was the Christ because it was revealed to him by his Father in heaven and not revealed to him by man (vs.17).  We can depend on no one to reveal Jesus to us, we can learn his story through listening to others, but we have to dig a bit deeper and allow God to reveal his son to us.  Then the story shifts and the Bible tells us from that time on, with this understanding of who he is, he began to explain to his disciples what the future would hold for him.  As I read on I can completely understand Peter’s response to what Jesus had just told them.  He loved Jesus and of course he would not want something to happen to him, but Jesus’ response was to rebuke Peter.  In fact, Jesus said to get behind me Satan and that this kind of talk was a stumbling block to God’s plan.  Wasn’t Peter’s reaction normal, I would do the same thing for my friend, after all, isn’t it just natural to want to protect those we love?  So what was Jesus telling them?  He was telling them and telling us that it is not up to us to decide on what should take place, it is not our responsibility to fix things to how we think they should be.  God’s plan is greater than ours, we know very little and he knows everything.  Peter didn’t want Jesus to be killed, but if Peter had gotten his way where would we be now?  Satan was even trying to work his way into this moment in order to alter God’s plan.  This is why it is so important to move ourselves and our ideas out of the way and just seek God’s will---no matter what his will is best and seeking it is the only way that we will become who we are truly suppose to be.

Beginning in verse 24 Jesus explains what he means a little further.  You know quite honestly as much as we want to believe that this is our life and we make our own plans---it is truly not our life.  We can either choose to let God lead us or to lead ourselves.  When we choose to follow Jesus that means we give up our life and we accept the plans that he has for us, whether we understand them or not.  When we choose to lead our own life we give up the plans that God has for us, we give up all the blessings that await us, and we could possibly give up our way to heaven.  It may seem difficult to give up what we want for ourselves, but when we do, when we truly allow Jesus to lead us then we will go further than we ever thought we could go.  We will be blessed beyond measure and we will be filled with a joy that is indescribable.  Like I have said before, as a follower of Christ our life will not be easy---Satan will be after us, but when I think about this I look at the suffering that Jesus had to endure---why should I deserve a better life than my Savior?  Jesus tells us that whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (vs.25).  The bottom line is we will not find the life that we were created to have unless we let go of the life that we think we should have.  In closing I leave you with the words that sum everything up, the words of our Savior, Jesus Christ, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (vs.26)

With Much Love and Prayers!