Thursday, February 16, 2006

mark 8

31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”



As I read this over breakfast, I thought about what it meant, in context of the story, to deny myself: JC said this, it happened right after Peter acted in his own reason and wisdom, and was corrected towards a higher purpose thereafter. He said to Peter, that he had in mind the things of men, not of God.


Sometimes we think we can find a way to win an argument about God, but actually in the process of that, we lose our soul. It is like when we think we won, we actually lost. Maybe we lose that friend whom we argued with. Maybe we lose the God who wants to reckon with us. Maybe we lose out on a blessing God wants to give us but we refuse to believe and receive.


It also means that when we really want to follow God, we have to really put our own strength, wisdom, reason, aside to the point of denial - in comparison to the acknowledgement of His strength, wisdom and reason.


Have you ever thought that you were good at something?


After a while, in the face of something greater, you realise that what you might have thought was adequate initially, is thoroughly lacking actually. And you get humbled for that.


Before your world gets taken apart in that way, in the epitome of inadequacy, relent and think: deny yourself, take up your cross - a higher cause than yourself alone, and follow Him, someone greater than you, who will give what you need to make it in and more importantly, for this world.

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