Day 38

Mark 8:31-38

³¹ And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² And He said this plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. ³³ But turning and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

³⁴ And calling the crowd to Him with His disciples, He said to them, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. ³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. ³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? ³⁷ For what can a man give in return for his soul? ³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

         Oh my! There are some interesting things here that all Christians need to see. We Christians live in a careless world. By that I mean we have gotten careless in the way of the Scripture and how it pertains to us personally. I want to do what I did yesterday and have the Scripture in Italics and then my thoughts in regular.

         This immediately follows Peter’s open confession that Jesus is the Christ.

³¹ And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. This was not what His followers wanted to hear. They were so locked into the traditional (but wrong, as traditional things often are) Jewish thinking that the Christ would over throw the Roman government, that this would have been confusing.

³² And He said this plainly. No parables, no word puzzles. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. Now this is a great visual. Peter, the uneducated fisherman from Galilee, Someone who was, essentially, a new believer, takes Jesus aside and says something like, “Hey! Come on, Jesus! This is crazy talk! And you are confusing these folks! Ease back a bit!” Believe me, I have nothing against professional fisherman. And I have nothing against those who have no formal education in the things of God. But anyone who would take Jesus aside and rebuke HIM! Blows the mind. And, even though Peter was a friend, Jesus was having none of it.

³³ But turning and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” This is a direct reference to too the Jewish thinking of Christ as a warrior and savior of the nation, rather than the Savior of the world. They had been together for a while. Traveled together, eaten together, talked at length together. Jesus had explained His mission. And they still didn’t get it.

³⁴ And calling the crowd to Him with His disciples, He said to them, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.  

³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. These two verses, thirty four and thirty five,  Gives a foreshadowing of the extent of His sacrifice and He tells them that they needed to sacrifice their lives for Him. Does this mean we actually die for Jesus, as He did for us? No, our sacrifice is to live for Him and die to the world. And that is really hard. To live a life of true sacrifice for fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years…wow. Who does that? Yet, it is what we are to do.

³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Another thing that went against Jewish thought. If a man was rich, he was blessed. But Jesus says no, Certainly, a rich man can live his life for the Lord, but his wealth is not the measuring stick that indicates his Godliness.

³⁷ For what can a man give in return for his soul?

³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” Oh no! Oh yes. Have you ever had that moment in a restaurant when you knew you should thanks for the meal but you did not because you were afraid others would think you strange? Have you ever had that moment when you came in contact with someone and the Holy Spirit was urging you to speak to them but you didn’t because….for some reason? If so, or any number of ways you have backed down from sharing the good news, you have brought shame on the Son.

         The prayer for today is to ask the Lord to lead you into the path of Godliness. It doesn’t mean you will wind up in a pulpit or on a mission. It just means you will be doing His will, however that manifests in your life.