Praise God for the lives of the people in the Bible. They were real, flesh and blood people, and God reveals their lives as they truly were. Their righteous acts are told, and their sins are revealed so that we can relate to them and make application for our lives based on the lessons learned from their lives.
My hands down favorite person in the New Testament is Peter. I thank God for the life of Peter, I have learned so much from his interactions with the Lord Jesus. Just the dialogue between them is so full of lessons that I can apply to my walk with the Lord.
How many times do I take my eyes off of Jesus and focus instead on the waves that represent the trial that I am in? And as I begin to go under those waves and I too cry out to Jesus and He immediately grabs hold of me and pulls me up. Matthew 14:27-31.
I too have told the Lord that I would gladly lay down my life for Him, only to be sifted later and fail miserably. Yet when I come to Him and confess my sin He forgives my sin and makes me whole again. And He never throws it in my face, He forgives and forgets, never again will He mention past sins! How comforting to know that Jesus is interceding for me, praying my faith will not fail, He never gives up on me. Luke 22:31-34.
I can relate to wanting to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus, I wasn't clever enough to offer to build a tabernacle but then again, I erected one in my mind. Mountaintop experiences with Jesus are wonderful but we don't live there, we go down in the valleys and do battle with the demonic forces. Luke 9:28-43.
I can share in the sheer delight that Peter must have felt when he declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God! There is a special joy in confessing Jesus Christ as Lord!! I can only imagine how wonderful it was to hear Jesus say, blessed are you, because flesh and blood did not reveal that to you but My Father which is in heaven! Matthew 16:15-17.
Sadly I can understand what prompted Peter to say, God forbid it Lord, this shall never happen to You! He didn't want His Lord to suffer, and be killed in Jerusalem. Jesus rebuke of His disciple was deliberately harsh for Peter's words were against God's will. Little did Peter understand at the time, that the reason Christ came to earth was to die for the sins of the world, Peter's sins, my sins. The life application I took away from this encounter was to make sure that I set my mind to be in agreement with God's plans and not my plans or mans plans. Matthew 16:21-23. We have to know Scripture to know God's plans.
Now to today's title Scripture, Jesus talking to Peter, tells him that he is not to concern himself with what God's plan was for someone else, focus on the plan He has for him. Life application, why do I concern myself so much with what God is doing in other people's lives, that is none of my business, my business is to follow God. I must not compare myself with others, for if my perception is that they are much closer to God than I, then I can be jealous of them or if my perception is that they are not very close to God then I can judge them in my heart, both options are sin.
Application; keep my eyes on Jesus for how can I follow Him if I am always looking at others?
That is just what I needed to learn today! Thank you Kathy for being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I thank God for you, my mentor and my friend
ReplyDelete